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WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES 



/ 



DENTON J. SNIDER. 



CHICAGO: 

SIGMA PUBLISHING CO, 

10 Van Buren St. 




-lh^^-OJ^C 



1 



-ij 



I^ntered according to Act of Congress in the year 1895, by 

DENTON J. SNIDER, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Nixon-Jones Pristisq Company, 
216 Pine St., St. Louis, Mo. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface c . 5 

The Ferris Wheel ....... 10 

The Four Domes 42 

The Organization of the Fair ... 70 

The Greek Column at the Fair ... 94 

The Heart of the Fair 118 

The Court of Honor 124 

The Wooded Island 142 

State Buildings — Colonial . . . . 164 

State Buildings — From East to West . 192 

Foreign Buildings 220 

The Plaisance — General 233 

The Plaisance — Arabia, Mohammed, the 

Koran 259 

The Plaisance — Animal, Arab, Allah . 278 

The Plaisance — The Street in Cairo . 295 

The Plaisance — Savage Life .... 323 

The Plaisance — Ethnic Summary . . 339 

Miscellaneous 357 

World's Fair City 380 



PREFACE. 

I shall try to be fair to my reader, seeking to 
tell him briefly in advance the scope and general 
character of the present book, not concealing 
certain important omissions, so that he can at 
once decide whether he wishes any further ac- 
quaintance with it after having glanced through 
this preface. For it is a mistake, I hold, to ask 
a person to read a book which he may have no 
inner call to know, and with which he can feel no 
sympathy ; he will certainly lose his time, and 
probably his temper, in the perusal. ^ 

The plan is to study the Fair as a great event 
of history, I might say, a world-historical event, 
which took place at Chicago in the year 1893, 
but whose significance reaches beyond all urban, 
or even national boundaries. What did that 
huge outburst of secret, unexpected power mean ? 
We shall not rest content till we have grappled 
with the spirit which lurked in the mighty ap- 

(5) 



6 PBEFACE. 

pearance, and indeed created the same; we shall 
only be satisfied by getting some glimpses of its 
creative Idea. 

Doubtless, however, the most enduring effect 
has been produced upon those who live under 
the more immediate influence of the city where 
the Exposition was held — the people dwelling 
in the Chicago belt, whose periphery extends 
round the city at distances varying from several 
hundred to a thousand miles, according to the 
direction. This population, probably at the 
present moment the most energetic, enterprising, 
and aspiring set of human beings on the globe, 
found its supreme expression in the Fair, which 
it visited with the keenest delight, and of which 
it carried home a vivid image, together with all 
sorts of printed descriptions, tables, catalogues, 
columns of figures, ilhistrative pictures, down to 
advertisements. Since the Fair the printing 
press has been pouring forth a stream of litera- 
ture upon the subject ; especially the pictorial 
reproductions of the buildings have met with a 
colossal response from the people. Most of us 
still like to read or see anything which recalls the 
great event; we look back at the Fair not only 
with strong admiration, but with stronger love ; 
it has taken possession of our hearts more deeply 
than of our heads. The affection with which the 
people regard the Exposition is profoundly sig- 
nificant, and shows that they still appreciate the 
heroic deed in whatever way it is done. 



PREFACE. 7 

But the vast multitude of details, as yet more 
or less chaotic, must be reduced to order, before 
the event can become our intellectual property ; 
this floating mass of images, recalled and repro- 
duced by the thousands, must be united and held 
together through their Idea ere they can become 
truly our spiritual possession. Such is the en-^ 
deavor of this book, only a beginning ; it seeks 
to crystallize into thought the enormous cloudr 
masses of fact and image still hovering around 
the Fair. The hour for a complete organic work 
of this kind has by no means yet arrived ; the 
spirit must still brood long over the waters, ere 
the cosmos be born. But it is time to begin. ' 

Thus, from the standpoint of the present 
book at least, the Columbian Exposition is by no 
means dead, and is not going to die for a while 
yet ; nay, it may be said to have taken on a new 
and higher phase of life, different from the 
former one, yet springing out of the same. It 
is true that the outer semblance of the mighty 
spectacle has quite vanished, and that unseemly 
heaps of rubbish and ashes lie where the splendid 
edifices once stood; still they are not lost, but 
have become internal — the soul's possession, 
which is immortal. Strange but true is the 
statement: once they were transitory, but now 
they are eternal; while they existed, they could 
perish, but having perished, they live. ..J 

Not only in the heart and imagination of the^ 
people of the West is the World's Fair still 



8 PREFACE. 

alive; it is re-incarnating itself on many sides, 
especially in architectural forms. In villages, 
towns and cities throughout the country one can 
see its spirit at work in the buildings just erected 
or in the process of erection. Verily creative is 
the Idea, it must be embodying itself afresh in 
hundreds of shapes, and thus reach its true 
( heritage in the world of sense. It will therefore 
produce no surprise that the present book puts its 
chief stress on architecture. 

On the other hand, the works of the sculptor 
and painter find almost no mention. Multitudi- 
nous and splendid was their display, never to be 
forgotten; still they were felt at last to be a 
foreign imitation, not yet naturalized, in spite of 
prodigious effort. The spirit of the Fair some- 
how would not express itself this time in sculpt- 
ure and painting ; may these sister arts win their 
laurels next time ! 

But to record all the things omitted in this 
book would require another book, and less inter- 
esting, if possible. Let the matter be cut short 
with the statement that, in the author's judg- 
ment, the three greatest and most original prod- 
ucts of the Fair were the Ferris Wheel, the 
Architecture, and the Midway Plaisance. These 
are the three main themes of the present book, 
two-thirds of which appeared in pamphlet form 
during the Fair, while the remaining third is 
printed now for the first time 



THE FERRIS WHEEL, 

Triumphantly the World's Fair announces 
itself in the distance by the Ferris Wheel, before 
any building or tower or dome can be seen. A 
piece of machinery of colossal size is the intro- 
duction to the Exposition; a writer, searching 
for his point of beginning, may be permitted to 
start his book upon the World's Fair with the 
same grand mechanical contrivance, in the hope 
of gaining thereby a little needful momentum. 

The Ferris Wheel is primarily a work of 
scientific engineering, but it is something more. 
What this additional quality may be, so subtle 
and so ideal, we shall try to investigate. Not 
only a work of engineering, but also a work of 
imagination we hold it to be ; it reaches over 
science and sweeps into the domain of art. 

(9) 



10 WOBLD't^ FAIR STUDIES. 

Mathematics cannot adequately explain it ; the 
imagination itself is required to understand and 
interpret the imagination. 

In the Ferris Wheel the Plaisance, if not the 
whole Fair, finds its culmination. The mighty 
mechanism mounting heavenward from the heart 
of the avenue along which lie the nations of the 
globe, images in its massive rotation the revolv- 
ing earth, and permits us to take, in one of its 
swinging coaches, a short journey round the 
world. Ascending, descending, it moves in a kind 
of inner rhythmic harmony with yonder Sun, 
which also to the vision turns round the sky, ris- 
ing, setting. Still this mighty disc resting on 
the Midway is of us and not of the Gods, being 
made by mortal hands and showing strong 
terrestrial sympathies. 

Undoubtedly the Ferris Wheel has taken the 
Grand Prize at the Fair. The judges are the 
millions who have been present and have wit- 
nessed it, impartial, unpurchasable, inexorable, 
appointed only by themselves, and constituting 
the tribunal of last resort which passes judgment 
upon whatever is great and lasting in this 
vast display of man's activities. A world-judg- 
ment we have to consider it, most emphatic too; 
we could not appeal from it if we would. Surely 
there is something very human in the big Wheel, 
calling out to the multitudes which surge below, 
and eliciting a marvelously sympathetic response 



THE F EBB IS WHEEL. 11 

from every heart. All feel its deep sugfi^estive- 
ness, and catch its flashes afar into the Past and 
Future ; it fills the soul with glimpses of mean- 
ing quite beyond what we can at first tell; an 
unspeakable, overwhelming element lurks in it 
which picks up our struggling spirit and makes 
a bold dash for the Infinite. Who does not 
wrestle with his soul's limits in contemplating it, 
beating vainly his wings against the walls which 
shut him in? Still our thoughts must at 
last find some utterance; everybody has finally 
to give an answer to that imperative question 
sounding throuojh the Plaisance : What is the big 
Wheel saying? 

To the visitor approaching Jackson Park by^ 
land or water, it is the first object which becomes 
visible, rising more than one hundred feet higher 
than the highest dome, and thus soaring above all 
the lofty architecture of the Exposition. Slowly it 
can be seen turning, turning ; what does it turn? 
Has it not some unseen belt attached to its 
broad rim, and is not this belt connected with 
the main grounds, whose machinery is moved by 
the rotations of the Ferris Wheel? Such it ap- 
pears at a distance: it must be driving some- 
thing, and what else is there for its enormous 
energy but the Great Fair? That wonderful 
belt in mid air never quite vanishes from the 
mind of the visitor, even when he walks up 
the Plaisance and stops for a gaze just under the 



12 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIEIS. 

Wheel, which is felt to have some strong though 
invisible bond with the entire Exposition. Still 
we ask, what does it turn? 

^ The Ferris Wheel turns itself. It is an ideal 
thing, it has no direct mechanical use, it is not 
for driving a machine ; it exists for itself, being 
its own end, and thus becomes an image of the 
self-active spirit. Its supreme use is to mani- 
fest an idea, and therein its ideality is shown to 

r be its dominant element. It appeals far more 
powerfully to the imagination than to the under- 
standing ; very manifest is the fact that the 
people feel its poetry more deeply than its me- 
chanics; accurately measured it must be, but so 
is verse ; a piece of mechanism it is, and yet it 
sings. A cunning adjustment of cog and rod and 
shaft and manifold contrivances we know it to 
be, all founded upon rigid mathematic cal- 
culation ; still it bears within itself something 
incalculable, its hard material of iron casts 
a shadow of aught beyond mensuration. Not 
a belt but an idea is that which connects it 
with the total World's Fair, transforming it into 
a vast symbol thereof, which is finally the thing 
which we must make our own and carry away. 
Much have we all read about its materials, its 
process of construction, its measurements; very 
useful is such information. Useful for what? 
Surely not for itself ; useful for the idea which is 
just that which created the grand structure, and 



THE FEBRIS WHEEL. 13 

still holds it together and keeps it revolving. 
Could we somehow remove the idea out of it, at 
once it would fall back into chaos. The Ferris 
Wheel is, then, an utterance of an idea, and 
has a voice for him who can hear, expressing the 
new fact in a new way, wherein it becomes the 
last and freshest artistic expression, possibly 
heralding a new art. 

Engineer Ferris would probably laugh at us if 
he were told that he had built an iron poem with 
deep harmonies in it, or had constructed a fresh 
symbol of the spirit's triumph over matter. He 
did not intend any such thing, it is very likely; 
but he may well be surprised at what he 
has done, since the unexpected always hap- 
pens to the genius. Unconscious, unpur- 
posed by the human maker is the great 
work or deed; especially at pivotal epochs 
of time a secret universal energy co-op- 
erates with the chosen individual and makes 
him mightier than himself. The man must rise 
out of the limits of his own vocation, must break 
his professional chains and take to wing. Clearly 
Mr. Ferris is the prince of wheelwrights, but it 
required something more than a wheelwright to 
make this Wheel. Did not his fellow engineers 
scout his plan, they being simply engineers and 
nothing more? Such at least is the printed 
report of the matter, and it is too like the truth 
to be untrue. 



14 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

The mere fact of seizing upon the wheel and 
making it the image of industrial progress was a 
wonderful flash of insight. Indeed is not the 
Exposition rendered possible by the wheel ? Has 
not everybody been borne hither on a wheel of 
some kind? Car-wheel, wagon-wheel, boat- 
wheel, bicycle — what are they but the great 
means of transportation ? Vast is the importance 
of the wheel in the world's economy, appearing 
in every shape of mechanism from the time- 
piece in our pocket to the Corliss steam engine ; 
the mail who invented it began civilization. The 
work of Mr. Ferris by its magnitude calls atten- 
tion to the wheel and its place in the Universe ; 
it becomes an image of all rotary motion on earth 
and in heaven, from the spinning of the boy's 
top to the whirl of the planets around the Sun. 

It may, therefore, be affirmed that the Chicago 
Fair has been set in motion by wheels, of which 
fact the Ferris mechanism is the colossal emblem, 
perhaps we might say, the best artistic expres- 
sion. It is beautiful, it is sublime, and yet grace- 
ful ; moreover, it utters an idea, and though 
particular in form, being just this wheel, it has 
an universal meaning, being a type of all rotation. 
A deep harmony with the very sources of the 
Exposition it shows, its conception goes to the 
heart of the great opportunity ; exact mathemat- 
ical science furnished its body, but its soul was 
born of the creative imagination. 



THE FEBBIS WHEEL, 15 



In order to justify these opinions, which may 
seem lawless rhapsody to some people, it is 
worth our while to reflect a little upon the signifi- 
cance of a wheel. Many persons, though using 
it all their lives, have never spent a thought upon 
it ; the present writer has to confess that he was 
first driven by the Ferris Wheel into the ques- 
tion : What, then, is a wheel? Is it really so 
large a thing? What is the fundamental fact 
about it? Primarily it is the means of changing 
a rectilinear force into a circular one, which can 
then be turned into any required direction. Rude 
force pushes straight out or pulls ; it has to be 
transformed into a circle when it can be drawn 
off for a new purpose. The simple cart is 
moved by the ox on a line, but this line of force 
sets in motion the wheel of the vehicle which 
carries the load. The wheel turning on an axle 
and rolling on a road is the first great humani- 
tarian, taking the heavy burden from the back of 
man and even of beast. 

The primitive force of nature has to be trans- 
formed into the circular by the wheel ere it can 
be controlled and directed. For the circle com- 
plete and returning into itself, is the universal 
form of. nature's energy; earth, sun and stars 
move in circles or in the kindred form of an 
ellipse. But observe particularly that supreme 



16 WOULD' S FAIB STUDIES, 

mechanical contrivance of man, the steam en- 
gine; its central fact is the movement of the 
piston-rod, one end of which is rectilinear and 
the other end circular in its sweep ; wherein we 
behold the straight line passing into the circle. 
Just that indeed was the grand invention; the 
enormous power of steam expansion was cor- 
nered and driven into a circle, being compelled 
to turn a crank, which is really a wheel and 
moves a wheel. Thence the power of steam was 
distributed at will and sent forth upon its errands ; 
man now controls the rude energy of nature by 
transforming it into awheel. Verily, the Ferris 
Wheel stands for something inherent in our time 
and in our consciousness: hardly less does it 
affirm than the subjugation of physical forces 
to human control — which is the task and the 
triumph of the present epoch. 

Thus the wheel in some form is the basis of 
all transportation of men and materials, the 
bearer of the railroad, the driver of the steam- 
ship — the main questions about it being, How 
rapidly and how cheaply can we make it whirl? 
Commerce, intercommunication, the mastery 
over land and sea, the victory over Space and 
Time seem largely to turn on the wheel. It is 
well to note again its three constituent elements : 
(1) The direct power applied to make it move 
on its axis; (2) the resultant rotary motion, 
which is motion universalized, being the possi- 



THE FEBBIS WHEEL, 17 

bility of every direction; (3) the transfer of 
the rotary into the direct motion, which is brought 
about by some force counteracting the rotary one, 
as when the wheel of the wagon meets the 
ground, or the wheel of the steamboat strikes 
the water. Thus rotation is the grand mean in 
the realm of mechanical forces, and the wheel 
has a truly mediatorial function, standing in the 
middle and mediating between two diverse ener- 
gies, which must be brought into co-operation. 
The engine will not go forward by its own sheer 
power, however great; it must first be set upon 
wheels and then it will run. The Ferris Wheel 
towering solitary and existing for its own sake, 
emphasizes strongly its own ideal principle, and 
therein suggests from afar the thought of a 
mediating element, not only in the sphere of 
nature but also in that of mind. It has a char- 
acter like a man's, which we come to know and 
love after an intimate fellowship, and it speaks 
through its actions a tongue which we can only 
understand after some affectionate study. 

There can be no doubt that the Ferris Wheel 
gives a decided impression of beauty; it is for- 
ever rising out of dead mechanism into the living 
thrill of art. Its colossal size is coupled with 
harmony of form, suggesting the grand cosmical 
order which holds the Universe together. By 
night it is illuminated, and is thereby drawn into 
a kind of competition with the stars in Heaven 

2 



18 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES, 

which bend over it and twinkle in rivalry with 
its electric lamps. From one point in the dis- 
tance it appears a vast hoop of light resting on 
the earth; at another point, this hoop divides 
into two luminous circles, and one fancies that 
the rings of Saturn, shooting out of their orbits, 
may have dropped down to the World's Fair for 
a visit by night in the Plaisance. Surely the 
radiance below strikes subtle notes of harmony 
with the stellar radiance above, and the music of 
the spheres, terrestrial and celestial, begins to 
be felt, if- not heard. In fact, illumination has 
risen quite to the rank of a new art during the 
Exposition, and the Ferris Wheel has made itself 
visible by night as well as by day, exciting 
strong novel emotions by its brilliant nocturnal 
image. 

The visitor will often take his seat somewhere 
just beneath the big Wheel, and look up with 
wonder into the intricate network of rods and 
beams and supports, and ask himself, what does 
all this mean? It certainly hints a complex 
social system, each little part of which fulfills its 
special duty and thereby works for the great 
common end. Is there not a society with mem- 
bers mutually helpful up yonder made of iron? 
Behold the harmony of the scheme, with its 
triple shape of axle, middle rim and outer rim, 
interlaced and locked together in hundreds of 
ties and cross-pieces, each giving and receiving 



THE FEBEIS WHEEL. 19 

aid from the whole. Dependent on the totality, 
yet necessary to the same is each small bolt or 
screw ; well may we deem it a note, one little note 
helping to make the grand orchestral harmony, 
which the sympathetic listener will hear with his 
inner ear if not with his outer. 

Thus the Ferris Wheel casts an image, in its 
complex yet reciprocal parts, of the great social 
order, which is also complex and reciprocal in its 
structure. Indeed the mighty Wheel is the 
product of this social order which it images ; it 
required the co-operation of all kinds of workers 
in iron from all portions of the country to make 
it and hang it up cloudwards and set it going. 
Each man hammering at it in Pittsburg, in St. 
Louis, in New Bethlehem and elsewhere, repre- 
sents a little nail or clamp or screw holding 
together the vast complicated system. Only a 
society like the Ferris Wheel, complex, colossal, 
could produce the Ferris Wheel, making the 
same, as God made man, in its own'image. 

Very graceful the Wheel rises upward, with 
even ? ^' nder look, seeming almost to float and 
sway, like a huge round cobweb against the sky. 
Its motion is not ponderous, but easy and light for 
such a massive body; slow, steady, dignified it 
turns in measured cadence to a kind of musical 
beat, repeating only its monosyllabic click, click, 
click; otherwise quite silent. It is not grotesque, 
as it might easily become through its enormous 



20 WOELD'S FAIR STUDIES, 

size, being hung up in mid air 125 feet above the 
earth. Its colossality is truly national, Ameri- 
can, imaging the big country and the conscious- 
ness of the people, who must have magnitude in 
their art or in any picture of themselves. Big 
country, big Wheel, big Fair; even the Ameri- 
can savage, true to the spirit of the land, calls 
himself big Indian. And what is bigness but a 
crude greatness, which one day shall get ripe? 

The total appearance of the Ferris Wheel, seen 
afar or near at hand, is not magnificently bar- 
barous, but truly grand and beautiful. There 
is also a triumphant daring in it which connects 
it intimately with the locality which it over- 
looks ; it ought never to leave its present site, it 
will be out of place anywhere else. Its very 
idea links it closely with the city where it first 
rose up before the wondering eyes of men. 
Chicago has utilized the wheel more than any 
other place on the globe, being the center in 
which transportation has shown its most sudden 
as well as its greatest and boldest triumph. 
Verily Chicago is the child of the wheel, the 
brinf^er of railroad and steamboat, along: with 
the new order which is not hampered with pre- 
scription or privilege. Here the wheel, bearing 
its heavy burdens from all directions, seems to 
turn with the least friction on its axle ; it shows 
an innate tendency to run toward the City by 
the Lake, whatever be its propelling energy, 



'the febbis wheel. 21 

steam, electricity, horse-power. Therefore let 
us magnify the Wheel and set it up in mighty 
proportions before the whole world when we 
exhibit ourselves. 

While the Ferris Wheel was in process of con- 
struction many people said they would not trust 
it. A very old man, leaning on his staff one day 
and looking up at it, declared: *' Life is too 
precious to be risked in that way." But the 
wheel started and nearly everybody is taking a 
ride ; men, women and children are seen going 
up and returning in safety to their friends. Yet 
some grow pale and get sick at the stomach dur-1 
ing the trip; women cry and become hysterical,, 
and sometimes they faint. For most people it isj 
probably a little trial at the start; but there is a 
feeling that courage needs a taste of discipline 
when it fears to go where there is no danger. 
One can often see a workman carried around on 
the inside of the rim ; when the Wheel starts he 
walks ; when it stops for a moment, he inspects 
a bolt, or taps the megatherion with his hammer, 
just to hear the ring of the monster's voice. 

Characteristic is it that the Ferris Wheel some- 
times separates husband and wife; one goes up 
without the other, but has to come down again 
and resume his or her former lot. Mrs. Ferris, 
wife of the inventor, is said to have accompanied 
her husband when the latter went to the top in a 
terrific tempest in order to note the effects of the 



22 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

wind-storm which paid a visit to the Fair in July, 
hastening hitherwards at the eager pace of 110 
miles an hour, according to good authority. 
Brave woman, she clung to her husband and he 
clung to his Wheel, and the rough visitor swept 
by without producing any break of any kind. 
Two young ladies from the country, after vainly 
trying to persuade their father to go with them, 
take the trip alone: a significant deed, showing 
improvement in the blood and a dash of the 
American woman. But there is one set of people 
who always start up and come down harmonious, 
rapturous, indissoluble: who can they be? 
. Lovers, a class well represented at the Fair. 

I have been told that an Indiana woman refused 
to be penned up inside, but heroically mounted 
the top of a coach and thus took her ride, break- 
ino' over man's reo-ulation: which revolution of 
her's on the Ferris Wheel may foreshadow the 
great woman's revolution which is said to be 
coming. 

After pondering the matter a while, and seeing 
the huge toy revolve several times in a playful 
way, the visitor concludes that his experience of 
the Fair will not be complete unless he takes the 
trip. He enters the coach and the thing starts, 
slowly rounding upwards and bearing its burden 
along, the body standing erect yet always cir- 
cling. Most people will have a slight tremor, an 
unusual sensation of life's uncertainty, however 



THE FEBBIS WHEEL. 23 

stoical they be ; the imagination starts to work- 
ing with no little vigor, being set in motion by 
the Wheel*. Can any person help asking himself 
repeatedly with some eagerness : What if? 
Half in banter with his soul, half seriously shoot 
the questions through his brain: What if the Wheel 
should leap from its supports and start to rolling 
down the Plaisance like a boy's hoop? What if 
it should break a cog and begin whizzing round 
and round with the velocity of the earth-ball? 
What if it should stop when we are at the sum- 
mit and absolutely refuse to budge? How could 
we ever get down, thus lodged in cloudland? 
We glance at the pivot of the coach in which we 
are ascending, and observe that it must cancel 
the wheel's circular motion ; that pivot might 
get caught and cease moving ; what a tumbling 
together of men, women and children, topsy- 
turvy, would take place in the coach during the 
course of a single revolution ! 

Thus the imagination frisks about, calling up 
all sorts of possibilities, and painting the conse- 
quences in vivid colors, while the wheel keeps 
steadily going its appointed way, inevitable as 
the law of the planets, and paying not the least 
attention to the fantastic humors of mortals. An 
Olympian serenity it maintains amid all these 
fluttering hearts and capricious bubblings of 
humanity. One has to go round twice and it is 
well, for one is occupied inwardly at first ; but 



24 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

with the second revolution the mind is called out- 
ward by the splendid views of the Plaisance with 
its currents, eddies, and counter-currents of peo- 
ple, by the new outlook upon the Buildings of the 
Fair, with gleams of the Lake beyond, and of the 
City in the smoky distance. Not the least inter- 
esting is the aspect of the Wheel itself from 
above, many-handed as fabled Briareus, holding 
us out at arm's-length and giving us a slow sport- 
ive toss through the air as a fond father does his 
child. Down it brings us once more, and we 
pick up our terrestrial thread where we left it a 
few moments before for a sweep heavenward. 

The Ferris Wheel is reported by the guide- 
books to be 264 feet high, and the passengers 
ascend 250 feet in the coaches, ere the turn is 
made downward. Thirty-six of these pendent 
swinging coaches are counted in the orb, each of 
which is capable of holding sixty people, thus 
more than 2,000 persons may be seen winding up 
toward the moon and then descending earthward. 
It is a long railroad train made to mount in the 
air and turn and come back to the starting point; 
wherein we behold the iron horse transformed 
into a heaven-scalino^ Peo^asus and bearino^ aloft 
thousands of Bellerophons, at present in no 
danger of beinfj hurled from the back of the 
soaring steed and falling from the clouds. Thus 
the wildest fable of antiquity is translated into 
the literal modern fact with wilder additions, the 



THE FERRIS WHEEL. 25 

dream of the poet becomes a prophecy forecast- 
ing the reality, and everybody can now do with- 
out heroism what the Greek hero alone could do 
in the old ages — mount the flying horse and 
conquer the lire-breathing Chimaera. What 
next? Shall we not in time be able to invade 
the lunar territory? At any rate we can contem- 
plate the new appearance with wonder: that 
long line of a railroad train, carefully hugging the 
earth hitherto, of a sudden rears like a steed 
and leaps up skyward, gradually transforming 
itself into a soaring circle. On such a train did 
we, the people of the United States, come to Chi- 
cago to see something marvelous; but hardly did 
we expect to behold our very vehicle take wings 
before our eyes and soar like the American 
eagle, inasmuch as we intended to do the chief 
soaring ourselves. 

Still when we come to look a little more closely 
into the matter, what are we all doing just now 
but taking a ride around the sky in a long circu- 
lar train, of which the earth is the Ferris Wheel, 
and of which this city, this house or even this 
room may be regarded as one of the coaches? 
Around and around, up and down, overhead and 
underfoot are we whirled, yet always erect: thus 
we circled in the Wheel, yet never lost our 
straight line of gravity. And this is not all : are 
we not sweeping through a circular or an ellipti- 
cal orbit around the Sun on an earth-car, a small 



26 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

coach compared to the encompassing immensity 
of space? And perchance this is not all: the 
whole solar system is but a little coach in the 
grand cycle of the Cosmos. 

Thus the total earth is a kind of Ferris Wheel 
turning on its axis daily and carrying its train of 
coaches in which you and I are passengers. The 
earth's orbit is also a kind of Ferris Wheel, with 
our planet as a single car moving around the 
great central Sun, whose direct force of attrac- 
tion has to be converted into a circular movement 
which keeps all the planets spinning. Nor need 
we stop with the Sun and the planets, for they, 
all taken together, form merely one coach in the 
Ferris Wheel of the Universe, apparently circling 
around some far-off central luminary hardly yet 
ascertainable, which no human eye has yet seen, 
but whose light may to-morrow burst upon the 
earth with heaven-born radiance after sweeping 
across space for a million of years, in its long 
search to attain the last boundary of things and 
to shed upon the same its illumination. 



THE FEHEIS WHEEL, 27 

11. 

In such manner the Ferris Wheel, stretching 
the soul of the beholder by its magnitude, drives 
him beyond and beyond, past earth, sun and 
stars, to the very limits of the cosmical order, of 
which it casts a terrestrial shadow. But the 
great Wheel has equal power in the other direc- 
tion, it compels the mind to turn inwards and to 
explore the immensity there, in the sphere of 
the microcosm. For the Wheel is product of 
man's intelligence, and must bear the impress of 
intelligence; thus the huge material shape be- 
comes an image of spirit. Thought cannot 
create without leaving its stamp upon the thing 
created. 

In the first place, mind must be self-centered 
like the Wheel and turn on its own axis, trans- 
forming all sensation, or perchance all force 
which starts from the outside world, into its own 
movement, whereby we come to know things. 
This universal movement of mind is its essential 
form, which we may call circular, being at bottom 
a return into itself, self-related, self-conscious. 
Keeping up the comparison with the Wheel, we 
may further affirm that the rectilineal, the lim- 
ited, the one-lined, must be converted into the 
rotary, the unlimited, the all-lined, whereby the 
outer, finite world assumes the form of the un- 
bounded world within — knowledge, thought, 
spirit. 



28 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

On the other hand, this universal movement 
of mind being circular and self-returning, must 
not remain such, but must as^ain otq forth and 
take some special direction. That is, it must 
again become limited and particular, it cannot 
rest in its own pure universality, and dwell in its 
own infinitude. Otherwise the self-centered de- 
generates into the self-occupied, and the idea 
becomes fixed in its eternal revolutions about 
itself. This, in a lighter form of malady, is sim- 
ply selfishness, but it can turn to the deepest 
mental disease, insanity. The wheel that simply 
gyrates about its own center is of little use, is 
indeed crazy; the wheel can be diseased like the 
mind and show the image of the unsound as well 
asof the sound spirit. Both wheel and mind must 
impart 'svhat they are, must get out of them- 
selves, but first they must get into themselves. 
Impartation as well as acquisition belong to 
both; thus the total processes of the wheel and 
of the mind are similar, the one being outer, 
seen by the senses, the other being inner, seen 
only by itself, wherein lies just its essence. 

The Ferris Wheel turns on its own axis, but it 
carries its burden along, namely that train of 
cars which encircles its outer rim, not pulling, 
but lifting it by sheer strength. It transforms 
the force of the steam-engine, driving the same 
into a rotary motion, which is specialized in each 
coach turning on its own pivot and keeping erect 
while movinir around the center. Rectilineal 



THE FEBRIS WHEEL. 29 

first, then circular, then rectilineal again — for 
that coach-pivot cancels the circular movement 
of the Wheel back into the line — such is the 
threefold process, as already traced. To start at 
the beginning, note the huge piston-rod of the 
engine thrustino^ straight out at first ; then observe 
it change into a circle which moves the Wheel, 
and this in its turn moves the coaches. Thus 
the entire process becomes an image of mind, 
the outer reflecting the inner which made it, the 
material setting forth the spiritual, the object 
manifesting the idea. Veritably a symbolic thing 
is the great Wheel, holding up to spirit a mirror 
of the latter's innermost movement; the obtain- 
ing from the external, the transforming within, 
and the imparting without. 

Flowing out of this central fact, many sug- 
gestive relations can be traced between the Wheel 
and the Mind; they hint a feeling of kinship, a 
veritable sympathy exists between the inner soul 
and the outer form. The spirit of the beholder 
roused to transcendent vision, looks beyond mere 
eye-sight into the essence of things, and will not 
rest till it has beheld itself in the vast object, 
thus attaining knowledge. The very magnitude 
of the Ferris Wheel is a truly adequate quality 
for expressing Mind, which is the boundless, 
limit-leaping, barrier-bursting ; hence the fasci- 
nation as well as the deep artistic significance of 
the colossal shape. 



30 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

III. 

The educational value of the wheel in its roll 
down Time is great ; its changes and various uses 
reflect the progress of civilization. Has not man 
made it and imaged himself in it too? Bj that 
reader who is able to read the meaning in things, 
the World's History can be read in the develop- 
ment of the Wheel. Thus an historical lesson 
can be learned from the mechanism. 

In the midst of the Orientals of the Plaisance, 
the Ferris Wheel mounts skyward, suggesting 
the triumph of the Occident and throwing out 
deep intimations of the meaning of the New 
World and of the march of the ages. We have 
often wondered what thoughts arise in the souls 
of these dusky children of the East as they 
behold the mechanical marvel of the West. Do 
they receive from it any forewarnings of destiny, 
any significant foreshadowings of the World's 
movement? 

Doubtless the wheel was born far back in Asia. 
Hardly can we trace its history now, which is 
lost in the darkness of primeval time ; but that 
primitive man, working and thinking and planning 
over his rude cart, did a great thing when he 
made two round discs with a hole in the center of 
each, and united them with an axle piercing the 
boles, whereat the wheels began to roll and carry 
a load. No hub, no spoke or felloes, simply 



THE FEFRIS WHEEL. 31 

a round piece of wood with an aperture dug out 
in the middle, probably by means of an imple- 
ment of stone : Such was the beginning of the 
Ferris Wheel, of the locomotive, of transporta- 
tion, and of the grand transformation of the 
earth into the abode of the rational man, sur- 
rounding himself with a world made more and 
more in his own image. 

Barbarians in their forests have little use for 
the wheel, even if they know of it, for the good 
wheel demands a good road as its counterpart. 
The Orient still employs largely the caravan, 
bearing the load directly at an enormous outlay 
of muscular strength ; thus the burdened camel 
still represents the East, which somehow has 
been unable to apply the same strength to the 
wheel, and thereby increase its force several fold 
at once. The desert of sand sometimes lies in 
the way, but that too can be conquered. The 
ancient Greek knew the wheel and used it for 
glory and for poetry in his chariot races ; he had 
roads, too, where the modern Greek has none. 
Homer sends Telemachus on wheels from Pylos 
to Sparta ; hardly could any vehicle make such a 
journey to-day in that country. But the Roman 
was the great wheelwright and road-maker; he 
conquered the world by his arms, but he held it 
together by the wheel and the road, with the 
Eternal City as the center, as the hub with radiat- 
ing spokes. Vast was the network spreading over 



32 . WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

Europe into Asia, and binding the civilized 
nations, and even uncivilized, into one Whole, or 
into one Wheel if you choose. Oriental con- 
querors we hear of, but their empires vanished, 
leaving scarcely a mark on the earth's face ; 
they were not wheelwrights. 

Thus the wheel brings about political unity, 
and has rendered the Great Republic possible. 
The Roman went in advance with his paved road 
and cart-wheel ; the American, some 2000 years 
later, follows with his mighty national unifiers, 
the railroad and the car-wheel. But mark the 
difference. Rome still used animal power to 
turn the wheel, while we are more and more 
employing inanimate power. Even the beast of 
burden must share in the movement of freedom, 
when his task is getting too onerous. The 
Oriental piled the load on his back ; the Roman 
hitched him to a wagon ; we are substituting for 
the horse of flesh and blood and sensation an 
iron horse, whose breath is steam and whose legs 
are wheels, running all day and all night with 
the speed of a racer and never getting tired, 
whereby New York and San Francisco on the 
opposite sides of the new continent are nearer 
together than were Rome and Naples in the 
olden time 

Thus mechanism has made the new political 
order a reality, setting man free from the im- 
mediate burden of nature, and even relieving 



THE FEBBIS WHEEL. 33 

the beast. But the converse is also true : the 
new political order has in its turn liberated mech- 
anism ; the free country has produced the free 
machine. The steamboat was the first contri- 
vance to carry its own engine — certainly a great 
invention ; the locomotive followed, driving itself 
on its own wheels and pulling after it a train. 
Thus more and more has machinery become the 
image of the free, self-determining man. Indeed 
it is plain that man, till he was free, and had 
in his soul the working conception of freedom, 
could not invent, could not conceive of a free 
machinery, namely a self-moving piece of matter, 
which therein becomes stamped with the very 
impress of selfhood. The freest land must in the 
end create the most perfect machinery, since the 
self-determined is the ideal even of the machine. 
America produced Robert Fulton who made the 
hitherto stationary steam-engine move itself on 
water. George Stephenson, an Englishman, 
followed him and made the same sort of an en- 
gine move itself on land. The identical spirit 
which manifests itself in a political instrument 
will also impress its features upon a mechanical 
instrument; the American railroad is a product 
of the Constitution of the United States, con- 
structed, however, by an engineer and not by a 
lawyer. Sometimes, it is true, the process is re- 
versed ; the machine gets into politics, whereas 
politics ought to get into the machine. 

3 



^4 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

It is, therefore, with a kind of sympathy that 
the Ferris Wheel looks down upon the heavy- 
laden camel, which trudges wearily beneath it in 
the Street of Cairo or along the Midway. Do 
they not speak to each other, telling of Orient 
and Occident, the Wheel at last saying to the 
camel, ''Let me, friend, take thy burden?" 
So it has said and done with a voice out of the 
heart of time ; but still more sympathetically 
does it behold and perchance address those 
human burden-bearers, men from the Turkish 
Village, who are carrjnng the sedan chair, shuf- 
fling along the street with muscles strained and 
bodies stooped under the weight of their load. 
Why do ye not, O ye helpless, hopeless Orient- 
als, take a chair with wheels to it, needing only 
to be pushed, not lifted? See here, such a chair 
is just now coming up the Midway — note, too, 
the youth who trundles it easily about. Thus 
in the sedan and wheeled chairs, as well as in 
their attendants, can we catch another image of 
of Orient and Occident flitting through the 
Plaisance. 

In such a way the wheel rolls down the ages, 
and its history is the history of civilization. 
One feels strongly that it will yet turn back- 
wards and run through the Orient; it has already 
beffun to do so — witness the Asiatic railroads 
coming from Europe. The East may never take 
our religion, but it must take our wheel. These 



THE FEIiRIS WHEEL. 3.5 

Orientals of the Plaisancc, daily gazing and 
wondering at the Eenis mechanism, cannot help 
having some such presentiment. The monster 
will crush them if they resist it; but it will carry 
them if they jump on and ride. 

Nor must we leave out of this account the 
latest application of the wheel in the ever-hurry- 
ing Occident. The bicycle has become a means 
of human locomotion, and has transformed the 
walk iuto a run. There always has been a great 
loss in the step of man or animal; the feet strike 
the earth and stop their energy with a sudden 
thud. Not an economical use of power: Cannot 
the downward thrust of the leg be made to con- 
tinue its force by transforming the same into a 
circular movement? The man on the bicycle is 
the human locomotive, his legs are the piston- 
rods with joints at the knees, whereby the recti- 
linear power is changed into the rotary by means 
of the crank, which drives the big wheel and the 
little; or perchance, this bicycle crank may be 
the rider himself. 

The ordinary gait of the pedestrian rises at 
once to a good trot or even a gallop, without the 
jar of stepping, and every man is his own horse 
and carriage. The youth of the land have now 
to learn a new kind of w^alk, or be left behind in 
the great race ; with the first kind they moved out 
of the past into the present, with this second kind 
they are sweeping out of the present into the 



36 WOELD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

future. Greybeards too, are learning, and 
women have begun to straddle the bicycle, 
determined not to walk in the rear. No wonder 
that we all love the wheel, ponder it, fondle it in 
fancy ; the Ferris Wheel becomes anew for us a 
typical thing, and makes the heart of young and 
old, man and woman, jump with expectant delight, 
for everybody is going to take a ride. 

In a certain sense the Ferris Wheel is a huge 
toy, a mighty plaything, which is made for 
grown people as well as for children, not only 
to ride on but to sport with, in imagination at 
least. One may well think that a kind of kin- 
dergarden has opened here in the Plaisance, one 
of whose games is the Ferris Wheel, yet not the 
only one by any means, since the whole Midway 
shows the kindergarden of the world, starting 
far down in Dahomey. One imagines that the 
little children who come hither and look for 
themselves, will hereafter choose the wheel as 
their toy with a new delight. In all of which 
we feel that the engineer has risen above his 
mere vocation and made himself truly the artist, 
producing a genuine, deeply suggestive image of 
his time in a material form which seizes hold of 
every soul, even the youngest. 

Far more does this image mean to us all than 
any painting or statue at the Fair, though these 
be excellent too in their way ; indeed, they seem 
almost to have gone out of date in the presence 



THE FERE IS WHEEL. 37 

of the big Wheel. Truly the works of art at the 
Fair are but imitations, reproductions, rehabili- 
tations of things which have been better done ; 
they are really forms of expression which have 
already had their bloom in other centuries. 

The comparison has often been made between 
the Ferris Wheel and the Eiffel Tower. Both 
are existing forms expanded to a colossal size, 
till they take strong hold of the imagination and 
of the heart. Both therein become symbols, 
adumbrating Chicago and Paris, or America and 
France. Their respective nations have looked 
on both these structures, and each has said with 
great unanimity: There is a good deal of me in 
that work, it exalts me, it stirs my spirit, it is 
American, it is French. 

The tower is of the past, military in its 
associations on the whole; it seems connected 
with overlooking a subject people. The motion 
in the framework of the Eiffel Tower was up and 
down, perpendicular, notcircular ; it could really 
go in but one direction, it had not the possibility 
of all directions. It carried people several times 
higher that the Ferris Wheel; one cannot help 
thinking that it sprang from the French military 
mind, which seeks to get an outlook from Paris 
over the Rhine to see if the enemy are coming. 
Is not all France seated on a watch-tower an}^- 
how? France is a sentinel just now, America is 
not, thank the Lord; but no boasting ! she has 



38 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

been, and may have to be again. The Wheel 
suggests peace, commerce, intercommunication ; 
with true instinct our engineer-artist has built us 
a wheel. But France has erected for herself a 
Tower, a mighty symbol of her spirit at present, 
which work was a prodigious success ; did not 
every true Frenchman wish to mount to the top 
and take a peep over ihe border? But the Tower 
could not have meant much in Chicago, at least 
not so much as it did in Paris; the design of 
building it here, though suggested, was very 
properly abandoned. 

Which is the greatest feat of engineering? 
That question the specialists must decide, we 
cannot ; still we can see that each city built its 
own spirit into a marvelous structure, which be- 
came representative, outstripping every product 
of art in the field of art. It looks as if the engi- 
neer were going to wrench the sceptre from the 
artist. Certainly the sculptor and the painter 
fall far behind him in the Chicago Exposition in 
portraying the spirit of the time. 

Our preference goes out to the Wheel instead 
of the Tower, we hope from no national preju- 
dice. The former has a deeper, more humane 
suggestiveness, and, we contend, is more beauti- 
ful. The very motion of the Wheel is more 
graceful than that of the Tower, which was nar- 
row and arbitrary, up and down, while the Wheel 
swept round in a grand curve and made a circle ; 



THE FEBIUS WHEEL. 39 

the motion of the one wjis particular, that of the 
other universal, the possibility of all motions. 

Not the least significant thing about the Ferris 
Wheel was the rapidity of its construction. 
The assertion has been made in print on good 
authority that on December 28th, 1892, it was 
still in masses of pig iron scattered over various 
parts of the country. In less than six months, 
on June 21st, 1893, the Wheel began to revolve, 
2,200 tons of pig iron having been transmuted 
into its shape. Such a fact hints the grand 
social and industrial mechanism by which such a 
result is brouiijht about throuofh hundreds of 
co-operating causes, of which the manifold net- 
work of the Wheel casts a vivid image. 

One must see with the inward eye many things 
pertaining to this Wheel, among others one 
must behold its parts coming together from every 
portion of the United States, from places hun- 
dreds of miles asunder. Very striking is this 
co-alescence and adjustment of its parts, according 
to some pre-established law of harmony. From 
Pittsburg come the rolled plates, rods, bars ; from 
Youngstown, Ohio, the engines which furnish 
the motive power; from St. Louis, the steam 
boilers; the huge steel axle, 45 feet long and 33 
inches in diameter, said to be the largest steel 
shaft ever forged, is the product of the Bethlehem 
Iron Works in Pennsylvania, a work veritably 
forged with the hammer of Thor. The setting 



40 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

up of these huge pieces was mainly accomplished 
by local talent. 

What went before and commanded these 
mighty energies, each to perform its separate 
task in remote places? Evidently the Idea. 
Everything was calculated beforehand and took 
its place in an ideal shape of the Wheel ; then it 
assumed its form under the cunning hand of the 
artificer; at last it began its march from its 
birth-place and came to Chicago, dropping into 
its position by a kind of fore-ordination. Great 
is the Idea, all-controlling ; we must look through 
the material of the Ferris Wheel and see the 
Idea, to which solid iron becomes fluid, yea 
transparent. 

The Idea is what commands Space, Time, 
Matter ; every screw is made in advance to fit 
into its place, as well as the huge rolled plates of 
steel. This material shape cannot exist without 
being mind at first ; the Ferris Wheel had to 
revolve in a man's brain before it could revolve 
in the world of matter. And the Idea is still 
there, and holds the mechanism in its limits; 
could you jerk the Idea out of the Ferris Wheel, 
it would fall, drop back into a formless mass of 
pig iron, from whence it sprang, and even that 
pig iron would take another drop backward into 
chaos. 

Thus the Wheel in its creation casts an image 
of the grand industrial order of the age ; it sets 



THE FERRIS WHEEL. 41 

forth what made it in a strong picture, truly 
symbolic. Each part adjusts itself to the Whole, 
seeks its phice therein and fills the same, har- 
monious with the Whole, helping to bring forth 
the great result. Mutual support and co- 
operation we read in the Wheel itself and in the 
way of making it. Nor should we forget the 
safety with which it does its work. Every piece 
is tested before it is allowed to take its place in 
the totality; its strength is known beforehand, 
security is reduced to a mathematic formula. 
The little bolt has to stand its examination before 
it can enter the public service of the Wheel ; 
hazard is removed to the utmost limit. Only a 
complex society could bring forth such a com- 
plex piece of mechanism. 

Thus a trip on the Ferris Wheel becomes 
truly a journey round the world. The individ- 
ual commits himself to its providence, result of 
science, and is brought back to his starting point 
in safety. A circumnavigation of a spiritual 
globe he has made, if his eyes and heart be open ; 
what more could he demand? 



THE FOUR DOMES. 

« 

Overwhelming is the first look at the World's 

Fair ; human vision succumbs for a time to the 
impression, and runs wildly over the mass of 
edifices, unable to catch the ordering principle. 
But the mind soon rallies from its confusion, 
and begins its search for some guiding principle. 
Where shall it start? 

The visitor will find himj^elf, sooner or later, in 
a large inclosure, which is surrounded by lines 
of stately buildings, and which has, as its heart, 
a canal encircling an island. At almost any 
point in this inclosure he can take bis bearings 
and fix in his vision certain prominent objects, 
by which he will always be able to tell where he 
is in his mazy wanderings through the crowd and 
(42) 



THE FOUR DOMES. 43 

amonor the structures. Land marks are the first 
means of guidance into the new order before 
him. 

Let him look up and he will see at the four 
points of the compass, Xhe Four Domes, to which 
we now intend to devote a little study. They 
are the loftiest objects in his horizon ; they are 
the largest of the many domes and towers rising 
up from the edifices of the World's Fair ; they 
are different in shape and size from one another, 
and thus can be easily distinguished ; they all 
have a meaning and a history. While they are 
distinct in form and separate in place, they be- 
long together and make a series or system, which, 
if we desire to group our ideas and designate 
them by a nomenclature, we may name the pri- 
mary domical system of the World's Fair Build- 
ings. The thought is, they are really part of 
one vast structure whose unity is to be felt, seen 
and expressed. 

We now ask our reader to imao^ine himself 
taking a position in the inclosure above men- 
tioned, and surveying the horizon in the four 
directions, which embrace for the present his 
outer world. We shall first attempt to give a 
brief description of these Four Domes; then we 
shall try to find the meaning of the Dome as an 
architectural form ; finally w^e shall seek to throw 
some glances into the historic evolution of the 
Dome till its appearance at the Chicago Fair. 



44 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

I. 

The human being naturally looks first toward 
the East, the source of light, of culture, of civi- 
lization, probably the source of man himself. 
Moreover, the East is the home of authority, 
religious and secular, and shows the beginning of 
institutions and of the World's History. Now, 
what building seems to have the best right to lie 
eastward in the great architectual system of the 
Fair? At any rate here is the United States 
Government Building with its imposing Dome, 
120 feet in diameter and 150 feet in height. 
This Dome is clearly a suggestion taken from 
the Capitol at Washington, so that every Ameri- 
can in these grounds has before himself an image 
of the typical building of his country, and if he 
be keenly alive to the fundamental artistic 
impulse which created such a structure, he will 
have a thrill of nationality every time he looks 
up and beholds its massive outlines marked off 
in stronof relief ao^ainst its blue back-ofround of 

DO O 

the skies. 

Such is, then, a glance at the first Dome, from 
which we may turn to the North, for in that 
re2fion a larsre buildincr calls our attention. It is 

O O c5 

constructed in the form of a Greek cross, and 
over the central portion rises the second of the 
prominent Domes, which we wish specially to 
designate. The structure is the Illinois State 



THE FOUB DOMES. 45 

Building, the largest of all the State Buildings, 
very commodious, inasmuch as this Fair is in 
Illinois, and she is the hostess of the other States 
and Nations ; accordingly she must have a 
spacious mansion worthy of the occasion. The 
Dome has an internal diameter of 75 feet, and it 
rises to an inside height of 152 feet. Thus it is 
considerably narrower at the base than the Dome 
of the United States Building, yet it is a 
little higher. These dimensions give to it a 
more slender, less massive, yet more aspiring 
appearance. It seems to be ambitious of put- 
ting itself alongside of the Government Building, 
just yonder across the lagoon, though it shows 
itself by no means so broad at the foundation. 
The State asserts itself beside the Nation, and 
has its place in the grand architectural as well as 
political order. The conduct of Illinois in this 
matter has been called impudent and brazen, 
but sho is right, I hold; she belongs just in this 
location, and could not help erecting such a 
house with its lofty, self-asserting Dome. There 
can be no question about the loyalty of Illinois 
to the Nation, for that is written in characters 
of blood on many a battle-field. Delightful is 
it to witness now an equal loyality to herself, to 
her statehood, in which she stands with ail her 
sisters at her back just here in their own separate 
buildings. 

For the third Dome we shall have to turn to 



46 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

the South, where we see it glistening in the sun- 
beams as it rises above a cluster of splendid 
edifices, which surround it on all sides, and seem 
to be smiling on it as their own special hero. 
This is the Dome of the Administration Buildins:, 
the structure erected as the home of the directive 
power of the Fair. Manifestly the attempt is to 
express in architectonic forms the grand thought 
which moves and organizes this marvelous work 
of a World's Exposition. Moreover, we note 
that no expense has been spared to make it glit- 
ter and dazzle the eye; the center of the money 
flowing into and out of the Fair's coffers is here ; 
gold, literal gold, is suggested by the yellow 
gleams of the Dome, in contrast to the white 
maibled appearance of the surrounding edifices. 
In the arrangements of the Administration Build- 
ing we observe that utility has not been specially 
consulted ; beauty is the end of the architect here 
more than in any other structure on the grounds ; 
a lavish use of space and of funds without any 
restraints of economy is emphatically, almost 
ostentatiously, presented to the mind of the won- 
dering gazer. The sister arts, sculpture and 
painting, are most fervently invoked to the aid 
of architecture in the present work, and have 
given their response, doubtless the best they 
could under the circumstances. This Dome is 
distinofuished from the other three in beinjj 
octagonal; the diameter is 120 feet, just that of 



THE FOUIi DOMES. .47 

the Dome of the Government Building, while the 
two structures are about of the same height, 275 
feet. Undoubtedly the object of the adminis- 
tration was to give to the administration the 
finest residence on the grounds, as well as the 
best location. Such a purpose accords well with 
the spirit of our time, in which we see the men 
of great organizing power in the railroad, in 
manufactures, and in commerce, building for 
themselves the palaces of the land for their dwell- 
ing-places. Not kings and nobility are now the 
chief patrons of the architect and artist, but the 
man who can master the instrumentalities of 
wealth. 

The fourth large Dome is that of the Horticul- 
tural Building, on the west side of the inclosure. 
Its shape reflects its purpose ; under it are placed 
palms and tree-ferns and other tropical forms of 
vegetation. The diameter of the Dome is 180 
feet, while its height is but 114 feet; thus it is 
the widest and the lowest of the four Domes. 
These dimensions give it a broad appearance, not 
by any means inharmonious with its object. It 
is not aspiring, but seems to hug the earth and 
spread out over the same, in comparison with the 
other three Domes. It overarches and protects 
not a spiritual kingdom, but the vegetable one ; 
utility rather than ideality determines its form. 
Still it suggests nature, yet not the lowest of 
nature, for the planj; rises up toward Heaven and 



48 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES, 

seeks the light, and so is entitled to a Dome. In 
fact, the tree of itself often takes the shape of a 
Dome as it rises skyward. 

The visitor thus has the Four Domes before his 
mind, and their various positions at the four 
points of the compass. He can now find the 
direction wherever he may happen to look up, and 
the idea of a system may perchance have faintly 
dawned in his soul, as he brings together these 
four prominent objects in the flash of a glance 
round the horizon. For upon this horizon they 
have written certain lofty characters which must 
have some sisfnificance. 

II. 

It will, therefore, be in order for the visitor to 
ask himself next: What is the meaning of the 
Dome, and specially of this system of Domes 
which girds man here round-about, as it were 
from Heaven itself? After observation, reflec- 
tion must enter and begin its search for the 
thought underlying the appearance ; sight must 
be transmuted into insight. Some significance 
the Dome must have, which the beholder is first 
to read and then to take to heart. For all Archi- 
tecture is an utterance, setting forth not merely 
the purpose of an individual builder, but the 
spirit of a city, of a people, of an age. The 
builder when he rises into being truly an architect, 



THE FOCn DOMES. 49 

is possessed of some eneriry mightier than him- 
self, and in his inspiration he builds wiser than he 
knows. It seems to us that of all artists the 
architect has the best risrht to be unconscious in 
his work; his prototype is the little bee con- 
structing its hexagonal cells with geometrical per- 
fection, yet without any knowledge of geometry. 
But the thinking spectator, as he stands before 
the great edifice, is to read what it says, for only 
thus can he understand its purport. Silence 
seems to lie on the ponderous tongue of stone, 
especially when weighed down by the dead cen- 
turies, but even the Pyramids will speak to the 
ear that can rightly listen. Sit down before 
the monument and interro2:ate it concern ina: its 
mystery : What art thou doing just here, O cun- 
ning structure of human brains and hands, why 
hast thou been called out of the void to appear in 
Space and Time, and wherefore dost thou tarry? 
Not at once probably will the answer be given, 
but with due outlay of patience the still small 
voice will be heard intoning a word even from 
the colossal lips of the Sphinx. The traveler in 
foreign lands, if he be not in too great a hurry, 
will be able to cull the best fruit of his journey 
from the responses of stone given by the Greek 
Parthenon, the Roman Colosseum, the Mediaeval 
Cathedral. The past has a crystallized speech 
built into its marbles, which speech it is the first 
duty of the observer to decipher. The present, 

4 



50 WOBLD'S FAIE STUDIES. 

the very latest present, has also an architectural 
language, and has given a mighty utterance of 
itself at the World's Fair before us. Indeed 
man cannot help building himself into whatever 
he sets up; he must make a symbol of his spirit, 
of its littleness or of its greatness. The question, 
therefore, of the visitor is: Am I able to read 
this tongue? A little help in this matter he will 
probably not eschew; a little help to help him 
help himself is all that is needful. 

What, then, is the significance of the Dome? 
Note its position first; it is placed upon a lower 
structure which usually stands on the earth ; thus 
it is high over all, indeed quite out of reach, not 
directly resting upon a terrestrial foundation. 
Moreover, utility cannot be the object of its erec- 
tion ; a roof would do as well for a shelter. It 
has, therefore, an ideal purpose — it is built to 
utter spirit alone. Undoubtedly it protects, but 
the protection which it suggests is not simply the 
material one, against rain and wind, heat and 
cold ; it points to a spiritual protection. Provi- 
dence. 

The Dome was originally a religious structure, 
overarching the congregation below, — per- 
chance overaweing it too, — protecting it on 
the one hand yet requiring submission on the 
other. Its form resembled the canopy of 
Heaven ; it was, so to speak, the new 
Heaven on Earth which shielded man against a 



THE FOrii DOMES. 61 

mere physical Heaven, against an external world 
of Nature, Internally the dome was often filled 
with golden stars, with paintings of Saints and 
Angels, with images of Christ and even God, all 
of which were made to suggest its celestial mean- 
ing. Likewise it was round, that is complete^ 
wherein we may catch a hint of the grand totality, 
the Church, which was the all-embracing edifice 
of divinity, outside of which no man could be 
saved . 

The Dome rose with a sharp outline above the 
sacred House, revealing the two distinctive por- 
tions of an ecclesiastical edifice, lower and upper, 
which we may call the terrestrial and celestial 
portions. Such a division corresponds profoundly 
to the double nature of man, his sensuous and 
his spiritual elements, of whose conflict religion 
is the great mediator. When the roof suddenly 
shoots up into a Dome, do we not structurally see 
the passage from the real to the ideal, from a thing 
built for use to a thing built for an idea ? And does 
not man, contemplating such a transformation of 
his religious edifice, begin to move on the same 
lines within, and start to rise out of the senses to 
the spirit — whereby the soul's structure gets to 
be harmonious with that of the Church? Thus 
Christian Architecture has built the thought of 
Christendom into its places of worship, of which 
the Dome, with its various forms of spire, tower, 
steeple, is the loftiest outgrowth. 



52 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

But the Dome, taken by itself, towering over 
the people and standing alone in majestic supre- 
macy among the clouds, sends down below unto 
man the look of authority, nay, of absolute 
authority, imperial or ecclesiastical. With such 
a look comes the other side, submission, whereby 
the individual may be jeopardized in his freedom. 
Indeed, he runs the danger of losing or obscur- 
ing his selfhood under the grand canopy of the 
Church, which, if all-embracing, gets to be all- 
suppressing; it includes grandly and mightily, 
but excludes with equal energy. Thus, we be- 
hold a church which is universal, but which 
makes itself universal by crushing the individual. 
Hence a new process sets in by way of reaction 
and reconstruction, and with this process new- 
forms of Architecture arise. The Dome begins 
its migrations both toward the Orient and 
toward the Occident, developing on one side and 
on the other, intensifying the element of author- 
ity, or reconciling itself with freedom, according 
as it moves eastward or westward. 

The reader naturally asks at this point: What 
is the Dome doing at our World's Fair? What 
indeed is its right to be in America, the home of 
freedom, whose chief boast is to have embodied 
in its institutions the highest self-determination 
of the individual? Well, America is also the 
home of authority, perchance the very strongest 
authority just because of this liberty ; the Dome 



THE FOUR DOMES. 53 

hasitsplace in our architecturalaiulin ourspiritual 
system. Indeed we could not do without it and 
its imperial meaning, lifted not only above the 
individual, but also above the State into the 
supremacy of the Nation. But let the other side 
be affirmed with equal intensity : Tlie Dome 
must now be made, not to exclude and destroy, 
but to save and protect individuality in its fullest 
development. 

The four Domes of the World's Fair are not, 
then, an accident, but an evolution. Whether 
consciously planned or not, they have got them- 
selves built somehow, and placed in due order 
here, manifesting the deepest architectural sig- 
nificance, and revealing a new stage in the 
history of the Dome. Into this history we may 
now look, observing the various transformations 
which it undergoes from its origin to the present 
time, remembering each important change is an 
utterance of the spirit of the age. 



III. 

There can hardly be a doubt that the Dome 
sprang from the Arch, for what is the Dome but 
a kind of universal Arch? One is manifestly 
developed out of the other, and the people 
through whom this development took place, were 
the old Romans, who, if they did not invent 
the Arch, were the first builders who fully 



54 WOELD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

realized it, and gave to it the important place 
which it occupies to-day in construction. Indeed, 
the Arch would not be a bad symbol of Rome 
herself, the mighty world-upholder. 

We can easily conceive the process. The 
builder has to make two Arches cross each other 
at right angles; then follows the thought of 
making an indefinite number of Arches cross one 
another at a common point, which holds the key- 
stone. Finally the fact comes out that no key- 
stone is necessary in the Dome, as the latter can- 
not fall inwards, since it is held up laterally by 
the concentric rounds of its materials, stone or 
brick. Thus the Pantheon at Rome is open at 
the top. In the Dome, therefore, the principle 
of the Arch works horizontally as well as verti- 
cally. Or, the Dome is a series of concentric 
Arches laid on top of one another in the form of 
an Arch. We may well think, if we believe that 
construction springs from thought, that, as Rome 
made her city universal in the Empire, so she 
made her Arch universal in the Dome. 

If, accordingly, we trace the history of the 
Dome, down through time to its present appear- 
ance at Chicago, where it has assumed a new 
function, we shall note that it has a heathen 
epoch, whereof two buildings may be cited as 
examples — the temple of Vesta and the Pan- 
theon. Then it has a Christian epoch, of which 
four churches will furnish examples: two are 



THE FOUR DOMES. 55 

Bjzantine — early Christian with Oriental ten- 
dencies — St. Sophia's at Constantinople, and St. 
Mark's at Venice ; two others belong to the 
Renascence, and to the Occident — St. Peter's 
at Rome, Catholic, and St. Paul's at London, 
Protestant. Finally the Dome crosses the ocean 
and becomes secular in the Capitol at Washing- 
ton, whence it passes to the World's Fair. The 
inner genesis of all these structures we shall 
try to unfold in a little detail, for the sake of the 
Four Domes and their due appreciation. 

The Romans at an early date had the Arch and 
saw it passing into the Dome, as we may notice 
in their round temples, especially those dedicated 
to the goddess Vesta, of which two specimens 
almost perfect are still to be seen, one atTivoli and 
another at Rome. Two patterns of such a temple 
can also be seen at the Fair near the eastern end 
of the Court of Honor. Vesta was goddess of 
the hearth, and her temple was possibly suggested 
by the household gathered round the fire-place. 
The whole community worshiping in her temple 
becomes one family, as it were ; indeed, the world 
becomes one family in her worship ; her round 
temple suggests completeness, an all-embracing 
unity, which lies at the foundation of Roman 
spirit, and which makes its possessors the con- 
querors and unifiers of the world. 

Still more significant is the Pantheon, a very 
important building in the histor3'of Architecture, 



56 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

which was completed at Rome about the year 
25 B. C, during the reign of Augustus, and 
thus touches the beginning of Christianity. It 
is essentially a round temple, which has reached 
its true destiny, being devoted to all the gods ; 
a totality of divinity and hence a unity of god- 
hood lay in the conception and in the structure; 
polytheism shows its turn toward a monotheistic 
religion in the Pantheon . We feel when we pene- 
trate its creative idea, that the thought of the new 
order, indeed of the Christian world, has begun 
to dawn and to express itself in heathen Rome 
architecturally. The all-encompassing and all- 
protecting divinity is brought before the vision 
and the consciousness of the Roman by means of 
construction — an idea which he is realizino: in 
his universal Empire and in his Law equally 
universal. 

The Pantheon is a Dome, but a Dome placed 
upon the ground and clinging to the Earth ; it is 
still heathen and not fully spiritualized. The 
next great step is taken after some hundreds of 
years ; the Dome is freed of its immediate terres- 
trial foundation and is hoisted to the top of 
another building, which is the body of the Church 
structure, and, resting upon the Earth, supports 
the Dome mountino^ heavenward. This stage of 
its development was reached in Constantinople, 
when the Roman State had become Christian, and 
had found the architectural expression of the new 



THE FOUR DOMES. 57 

idea in the Byzantine style of construction. St. 
Sophia's Church, built by Justinian, who ascended 
the throne of the Eastern Empire in 527 A. D., 
is generally regarded as the archetypal form of 
the far-extending domical system, both Oriental 
and Occidental. 

The main body of the edifice holds the people, 
who are to be taken into the fold and cared for 
in paternal fashion ; they are still below on 
Earth and need protection. The Dome sweeps 
above them, with no direct purpose of utility; it 
is purely expressive of the celestial world over 
those who are in€luded in the walls of the Church. 
The worshiper in the Pantheon and in the temple 
of Vesta was still inside the Dome; but now he 
is under it in another structure, and it has risen 
out of the earthly and finite into a heavenly place. 
Moreover, we observe clinging around the central 
Dome of St. Sophia's a group of vaults and partial 
Domes, and these all constitute the beginnings of 
a great domical system which will develop into 
many forms along the path of time, the last of 
which is just this system of Four Domes of the 
Chicago Fair, placed on the four sides of Heaven's 
Dome. Children they seem, hugging the Mother 
Dome in St. Sophia's, but their destiny is to 
develop into separate and independent manhood. 

With Byzantine architecture the Dome trav- 
eled eastward and westward, acquiring charac- 
teristics peculiar to each people and each age in 



58 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

which it held sway. In the Orient it passed 
into Mahommedun countries, reaching India and 
possibly China. From the beginning it had an 
Oriental element ; it suggested divine authority, 
which might be pushed into Pantheism, or the 
complete nullification of the individual in this 
world and the next. The Russians have adopted 
it, giving to it a national tinge. The Arabians 
in particular carried it forward to a high degree 
of perfection in their own peculiar style. Many 
of these Oriental touches can be observed in the 
various structures of the Plaisance at Chicago. 

In the Occident, Christian Architecture took 
up the Dome and unfolded it into many sugges- 
tive forms. The Church of St. Mark's at 
Venice is, perhaps, the most important western 
product of the Byzantine style, erected A. D. 
976-1071. In it we see a development of the 
partial Domes of St. Sophia's into a system of 
complete and independent Domes, four of which 
are grouped around the fifth or central one at 
the four points of the compass. Note the anal- 
ogy to the Four Domes at Chicago, which are 
also grouped around the fifth or central one, 
namely that of Heaven itself. 

But the mightiest application of the Dome is 
witnessed in St, Peter's at Rome, truly a world- 
cathedral in thought and magnitude. In most of 
its architectural forms we can see that the Ren- 
ascence has swept over the Occident and wiped 



THE FOUR DOMES. 59 

out many Byzantine features, but the Dome 
remains and becomes one of the grandest of all 
constructive devices. It stands one and {done, it 
suffers no lesser forms of itself. In it one col- 
ossal genius asserts himself as absolutely as the 
Church of Rome; it is the work of Michel- 
Angelo Buonarotti (1474-1564). This vast 
Dome of the Roman-Catholic Hierarchy passed 
into the possession of the Anglican Protestant 
Hierarchy through the erection of St. Paul's 
Cathedral at London (1675-1710), a very im- 
portant structure to the English-speaking race, 
but much inferior to its great pattern. There 
can hardly be a doubt that through St. Paul's 
the Dome makes its connection with America on 
its road to the World's Fair. Already while 
it was building, many thriving colonies over the 
sea watched with deep interest the last great 
religious edifice erected by the mother-country, 
and possibly felt in it the end of the old and the 
beginninor of the new. 

In the old world, both in the Orient and in the 
Occident, the Dome was employed upon religious 
edifices mainly, and had a religious meaning. It 
seems specially adapted to suggest a State relig- 
ion, which extends its authority over all, and in 
case of necessity can compel obedience, if not 
conformity. It protects undoubtedly, but it also 
excludes and even represses ; the flock must stay 
within the fold under pain of losing salvation. 



60 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

possibly of losing life. Truly the Dome has the 
same problem as have institutions; it must har- 
monize authority with freedom. If it be a true 
thing it cannot perish from among men, just as 
little as authority itself can perish. 

Note, therefore, the next great movement of the 
Dome : it crosses the ocean to America, and the 
cardinal fact of this settlement of it in the New 
World is that it is placed, or rather places itself, 
upon the Capitol at Washington. Surely it has 
gone to the spiritual heart of the continent and 
installed itself there with no little energy. It is 
true that many churches can be found on this 
side of the water with Domes, but they are 
reproductions, importations purely, which have 
nothing distinctive in form or meaning. How 
little can they signify in comparison with St. 
Sophia's, or even with St. Paul's! It is also 
true that in Europe secular buildings may be 
found which have Domes, but they are really 
not at home —they are anticipations of the 
coming idea. 

But the fact that the Dome now settles upon 
the chief secular edifice of the New World, and 
transfers its allegiance, as well as its idea, from 
an ecclesiastical to a political structure, implies a 
mighty change, a change quite as important as 
the elevation of the Roman Pantheon to the top 
of Christian St. Sophia's. The protection given 
by the Nation is now the universal matter; that 



THE FOUIi DOMES. 61 

protection is fundamentally to secure man's 
liberty. The institution with all its authority is 
here, being visibly represented in the Dome, but 
the very object of that authority is fully to 
realize and protect the freedom of the individual 
through universal law and justice. 

The Dome of the Capitol at Washington has, 
therefore, no longer the idea of a centralized 
unity, which seeks to put all under itself; 
on the contrary, is imparts itself freely and 
without jealousy to every form of political 
authority. The result is that the sinsjle States 
have a decided tendency in their State Houses to 
repeat in some form the Capitol with its Dome ; 
they image the great national structure as their 
own in mutual relation; they recognize it and it 
recognizes them. Nay, we can witness the same 
spirit at work in the smaller and smallest politi- 
cal divisions of the land; the county and munic- 
ipality in their court-houses and town-halls, seats 
of justice and of local administration, show the 
same tendency to reproduce that central Dome, 
which thus becomes the symbol of unity on the 
one hand and of freedom on the other. The 
smallest Dome says to the largest: *'I in my 
sphere am just as self-governing as you are in 
yours; therein we both are one in spirit and in 
form, yet both are absolutely free." Local 
self-government has its own home and its own 
Dome, offering its protection and aflarming its 



62 WOULD' S FAIIi STUDIES. 

right with the same lanoruafye and under the same 
image that the general government employs. 
Thus a new domical system has arisen in the 
United States, scattering its Domes all through 
the land, imparting itself to State, city, county, 
with an ideal participation. Observe how this 
conception has succeeded in shaping itself archi- 
tecturally in the State Buildings at the World's 
Fair, where they are not scattered through the 
land but brought together into one whole, which 
is, indeed, a new universal Temple of the Nation. 
We have already noted in St. Sophia's at Con- 
stantinople a number of partial and lesser Domes, 
all in an incipient condition, and lying around the 
mother Dome, like infants or half-grown children, 
a veritable kindergarten on top of a church. In 
St. Mark's at Venice these have already become 
developed, full-grown as to size, yet they still lie 
around the central Dome on the same building. 
The Capitol at Washington, however, has essen- 
tially but the one Dome on its structure ; the 
children are no longer kept in a cluster around it, 
but are sent forth into the world as independent 
beings ; they are no longer held in tutelage by 
the kind, though absolute, power of the Hier- 
archy or the Empire. The idejirof paternalism 
is eschewed in the construction of the Amer- 
ican domical system; the individual must be 
accepted as free and therewith as standing 
firmly on his own foundation. Thus what 



THE FOUR DOMES. 63 

WO sec merely hinted as a germ in St. Sophia's, 
the archetype of domical construction, -becomes 
developed and differentiated into independent 
individuals, each of which, however, strongly as- 
serts itself as belonging to the totality. That is, 
the Dome has joined the American Union ; the 
domical system, imaging the great institutional 
movement of the ages, and making its dwelling 
places, has unfolded into a Federal system, in 
harmony with the Constitution of the United 
States. 

Such is the meaning of the change suggested 
in the architecture of this Western World. In 
like manner the ecclesiastical structure has been 
dispossessed of its locality. The Cathedral once 
occupied the Public Square or the most promi- 
nent place in the town or city ; so we see it still in 
Europe. In the United States, on the contrary, 
it has been supplanted by the Court House or 
Town Hall, often surmounted by a Dome taken 
from a Cathedral. The State is thus completely 
divorced from the Church, yet has assumed its 
function in part. Still the central fact seen in 
the central structure is the secular institutional 
life of the people, which has its home in that 
structure lying at the heart of the community. 

Meanwhile what has become of the Church? 
It is not lost, but moves somewhere around the 
corner into the neighborhood of its special wor- 
shipers, who construct it according to their own 



64 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

needs and beliefs. Religion is not thereby de- 
stroyed, but is internally strengthened, having 
gained individual freedom ; each man can wor- 
ship God according to the dictates of his con- 
science, and not according to the external behest 
of some established Church. Reliorion is ulti- 
mately an inner personal relation of the human 
being to the divine, and must in its deepest inti- 
macy shrink from any public manifestation. Let 
it therefore have its own organism apart from 
the civil institution. 

All men, however, are to live in society ac- 
cording to Justice ; thus her temple has become 
the common center of the community's life. 
Still let this temple be over-canopied with a 
Dome given by religion, let Justice be capped 
with Mercy; let Faith, Hope and Charity become 
not merely celestial but also terrestrial virtues. 
Heaven is to be brought down to Earth and not 
remain beyond ; it is to be realized here and now in 
the secular institutions of man ; life in the present 
is to start and carry forward the eternal life. 
Thus the European Cathedral is secularized in the 
American Capitol, and the Dome still unites the 
people under it with an image of Heaven not 
beyond but here realizable. 

May we not say that the Constitution of the 
United States is getting itself written in stone? 
Must not the same spirit which uttered itself in 
that instrument also build the public edifices of 



THE FOUR DOMES. 65 

the country? American architecture, though it 
be a development of the ages, just as America 
herself is the heir of time, must at last attain to 
expressing the national spirit. If I mistake not, 
we may already read two distinctive principles 
of our land written architecturally in its build- 
ings : first, the one Nation composed of many 
States internally sovereign, revealed in a federa- 
tion of Domes; second, the institutional separa- 
tion of State and Church, yet their spiritual 
connection hinted in the placing of the Church's 
Dome upon the State's edifice. 

Such, then, are the four Domes, such their 
meaning and their historic evolution till their 
appearance at the World's Fair. See them first 
as distinct, then see them as one system, as 
organic parts of one great edifice, architectural 
as well as institutional. Really they form with 
their special buildings one grand Temple sur- 
rounding an open inclosure, a new kind of 
hypsethral Temple, like some of those in ancient 
Greece, letting in the sunlight and sky as a part 
of its own structure. The primary domical 
system we have called these Four Domes, for 
there is also a secondary system, made up of 
other Domes at the World's Fair, whereof we 
may have something to say hereafter. 

But in this thought of the oneness of the Four 
Domes and of the connected buildings there is 
made a decided step in advance of the previous 

5 



66 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

American employment of the same in Nation and 
State. They are now joined together into a higher 
unity, at least we find the strong suggestion 
thereof. We should say that the most important 
thought which the visitor is to realize for him- 
self out of the Fair and to carry away with 
himself is this thought of unity. The series of 
structures is finally one structure, which is to 
hold the World's products, and manifest therein 
the World's Spirit. 

Never before was there such a massing of 
great architecture. Greece and Rome could 
probably not have furnished the parallel. We 
still can imagine what lay on the Acropolis of 
Athens along with the Parthenon. We can to a 
degree reconstruct the Roman Forum in its best 
architectural days. Of the great temples of 
Egypt we have considerable fragments. But 
here seems to be a sudden collection which sur- 
passes them all, at least in certain ways, not in 
durability however. 

Durability is usually considered as one of the 
artistic effects ot* great architecture. But the 
transitoriness of this whole scheme of buildings 
is just one of the marvels. 

The architecture which the world has produced 
in its thousands of years, is called up for a short 
period, made to show itself, and then is permitted 
to vanish. The power of the Idea which brings 
about such a result manifests a new control over 



THE FOUR DOMES. 67 

matter. Architecture is thrown into Time, is no 
longer frozen music, but begins to thaw and to 
move. 

Again we affirm that if the visitor look up 
with feeling and insight, he will behold around 
the horizon the New World enclosing him. To 
be sure, it is not said that the Architect or the 
Board of Architects were conscious of any such 
plan; it is phiin they were not. Architecture is 
an instinct, and the true architect builds wiser 
than he knows. He usually knows little of the 
Idea, and often despises what he knows of it ; he is 
not a philosopher, and is unable to give the final 
account of his own work. For his ultimate 
speech is his building, which has something for 
him quite unutterable in words. The artist 
uses his art for his last expression. 

In great epochs of construction something 
has to be built beyond the intention of the 
artist, often in opposition to his intention. The 
Idea gets itself built, and not always well built, 
since technical perfection may work out of har- 
mony with the Idea, and the latter may have to 
employ an imperfect instrument. 

It seems that the Four Domes of the Upper 
Enclosure were constructed without co-operation 
l)y different Architects. We read that the Archi- 
tect of the Government Building proceeded in his 
own way without consultation with the Board. 
The Illinois Building has been specially con- 



68 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

demned both as to location and construction. It 
may be said that its Dome is not perfect in form, 
and other criticisms may be made in the line of 
technical deficiencies. But whatever its short- 
comings, it is true to the Idea, and this is the 
main thing. 

This last point we may illustrate. All would 
agree that the statue of Aaron Burr, though ex- 
quisitely wrought and in itself beautiful, would 
be jarringly out of place in the room of the 
Supreme Court of the United States. On the 
other hand, the rudest image of John Marshall 
would be harmonious with the Idea, in spite of 
its technical imperfections. The portrait of 
Jefferson Davis by the best artist in the world 
would clash with all art by beiug made typical 
of emancipation and placed in a Freedman's 
School; while any recognizable picture of 
Abraham Lincoln would be a work of art in 
comparison, because deeply concordant with the 
Idea, which lies nestled in the environment. 
The final test, then, of a work of art is: Does it 
make itself a symbol of the Idea which is seeking 
utterance ? 

So we are inclined to endure the technical crit- 
icisms on the Illinois Building. When all is said 
it is still most harmonious with the totality 
around it, being an utterance of the Idea; it is 
an organic part of the domical system of the 
Upper Enclosure. And it was built apparently 



THE FOUR DOMES. 69 

in spite of the Board of Architects ; something 
greater than their architectural formulas was at 
work and found an instrument. What is this 
Spirit at work mightier than the conscious pur- 
pose of the builder? That is, indeed, just the 
problem, the deepest of all problems pertaining 
to the Fair. 



THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FAIR. 

When we speak of the organization of the 
Fair, we do not mean what its projectors may 
have knowingly planned and organized. Un- 
doubtedly there was a scheme or working pat- 
tern of it in the minds of those who originated 
it, but we have a strong belief that it has, in 
a number of characteristic respects, turned out 
different from what was consciously intended. 
The unconscious result is apt to be the most im- 
portant in all the greatest enterprises of men, 
especially in those which involve and interest the 
whole spirit of humanity, as must be the case in 
a World's Fair or Congress of the Nations. 

Our object at present is to look at the thing 
which has been realized, and to study its organic 
idea, whether that idea was conscious or uncon- 
(70) 



THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FAIR. 71 

scious in the organizer. There are many ways 
of regarding the wonderful appearance; some 
people will be satisfied simply to gaze in amaze- 
ment and rest in external impressions ; but the 
thinking spectator will seek to arrive at the 
creative thought which clothes itself in this over- 
whelming outer manifestation, and which unfolds 
itself into its different parts by an inner neces- 
sity. The question now arising in his mind is: 
What is the first division we have to make in 
order to grasp the thought of the phenomenon 
before us? Or, to state the matter a little more 
exact technically: What is the primal differ- 
entiation of the Idea which has developed itself 
into this World's Fair. 

The nations of the earth have come together 
in order to show the products of their intelli- 
gence. These products may take a material 
form, and thus may be classed as industrial, 
wherein mind reveals itself as the great trans- 
forming power of nature. Or they may assume 
an ideal shape, and reveal mind transforming 
mind and organizing the same into the spiritual 
works of man — Education, Religion, Philos- 
ophy, Science. Both the material and spiritual 
output of humanity should be somehow exhibited 
at an universal exposition. 

Thus we reach what is probably the primordial 
distinction in the organization of the present 
World's Fair. It divides itself into two great 



72 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

parts, corresponding to the double nature of man 
himself and of his works, the material and the 
spiritual, the visible and the invisible, the mani- 
festation and the idea. The World's Congress 
Auxiliary is supposed to represent more particu- 
larly the spiritual side of man's development, that 
portion which cannot be adequately shown to the 
outer eye, but must be seen by mind, being itself 
mind. This Congress has its own place of meet- 
ing, as well as its own work and organization, 
into the details of which, however, it is not our 
purpose at present to enter. 

But the visible Exposition at Jackson Park is 
the emphatic portion, which, though also the 
product of spirit, is .made to appeal powerfully 
to the senses. The civilization of the world here 
appears in its works; it is this civilization which 
binds the nations together into a whole, and this 
whole is primarily manifested in the unity of the 
buildings devoted to the Exposition. Architect- 
ure is the first and greatest art at the World's 
Fair ; it shows both the totality and its organic 
parts mifolding within these grounds. As the 
various civilized peoples are one by virtue of their 
civilization, so they are here put into a diversified 
group of buildings, which, however, constitute 
finally one structure, and have one fundamental 
thought. 

Such is the fact now to be emphasized, that of 
civilization, however varied may be its forms 



THE OBOANIZATION OF THE FAIR. 73 

among different peoples. These are to dwell 
together here in one vast temple, ordered accord- 
ing to the works of civilized life ; they are also 
one in a common idea and they must subordinate 
themselves in this unity, which is over them, yet 
in them as well. 

Equally certain is it that each Nation is to show 
itself as a complete, self-determining unit in this 
grand totality of nations. It is not to be ab- 
sorbed, it is not to be assimilated wholly by its 
participation ; on the contrary, it is to assert itself 
all the stronger as individual. It is to preserve 
and develop its own self-hood by sharing in what 
is universal. In other words civilization is not 
to destroy individuality, but is to nourish it in its 
true sense. Civilization, while uniting the indi- 
vidual nations in a common bond, is to give them 
a better opportunity for developing their own 
inherent character. 

The World's Fair, accordingly, as the exposi- 
tion of .civilization and the products thereof, will 
have two strong forces at work both in co-opera- 
tion and in counter-action, combining yet dividing, 
showing the unity of all, and their diversity as 
well. These two forces will manifest themselves 
in two fundamental divisions of the Exposition, 
indicating mightily, on the one hand, its universal 
side, and on the other hand its individual side. 
Architecture has primarily revealed this fact; 
note the one connected temple for all the States 



74 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

and Nations, and then the separate disconnected 
buildings for each State and Nation, in the north- 
ern portion of the grounds. Unity is affirmed, 
but not the death-dealing unity which means the 
destruction or even the assimilation of the indi- 
vidual, for behold the latter appearing here, too, 
and asserting its right of existence. 

Very significant and far-reaching will the pres- 
ent division reveal itself unto him who thinks. 
It cuts deep into the history of the world ; it 
reaches down to the foundation of systems of 
philosophy; it touches profoundly the religious 
development of mankind; it embraces in its sweep 
the fundamental forms of government among na- 
tions. Indeed, this division suggests the deepest 
dualism of the race, the difference between Orient 
and Occident. The Greek, placed in the vanguard 
of European civilization against the Asiatic, gave 
supreme validity to the individual — he fought for 
it and made it triumph. Nay, he gave to it an 
exclusive one-sided validity, and of this excess 
he at last perished. Oriental civilization, on the 
other hand, was always inclined to suppress the 
individual, or to hamper its development in Fam- 
ily and State — in Art, Eeligion and Philosophy. 
The true outcome is that both these conflicting 
elements of the old world be harmonized, and live 
together in a new order, political and social. 
Europe has long been working at this problem ; 
America, if she has not solved it, has carried it a 



THE ORGANIZATION^ OF THE FAIR. 75 

good way forward toward solution. The struggle 
is, of course, perennial, being the source of all 
transformation and renascence , but the latest form 
of it we may behold at the World's Fair, where 
it is built into the very edifices and organizes 
them. 

The French have called an enterprise of the 
present kind an Universal Exposition, which evi- 
dently has two meanings. The first indicates a 
display in which all peoples take part; but the 
second and deeper meaning of an Universal Ex- 
position is an exposition of the Universal, of 
that which unites all peoples, of that which is 
commonly called civilization, especially in its in- 
dustrial aspect. So the French say and think, 
being the chief heirs of the old Roman solidarity 
of nations, which is a phase of this universal 
element whereof we have been speaking. 

But the World's Fair, particularly in the 
United States, is to be an individuar exposition 
also — that is, an exposition of what is individ- 
ual, separate, peculiar, possibly capricious at 
times. Indeed, each State of the Union is to 
show itself distinctively in its own way and in its 
own home. It is not to be absorbed, though it 
recognize a higher supremacy; it is to be put 
under the shelter of the one great temple, yet it 
is also to put itself under its own shelter. There- 
in we may see an image of the Federal Union, 
with its two sovereignties, — State and National. 



76 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

Such is the new synthesis at Chicago, like a fresh 
step in the world's history showing a truly uni- 
versal exposition, one which does not suppress or 
obscure individuality, but gives to it full sway in 
its own sphere. For that which is truly univer- 
sal must finally over-arch and include the oppo- 
site of itself, namely, the individual in complete 
development. Thus it is, like Providence, who 
rules the universe, yet allows his great adversary, 
Satan, a free field of action in the same. 

These, then, are the two fundamental divisions 
of the visible appearance of the World's Fair at 
Jackson Park — divisions which also reach down 
and embrace the idea. But mankind has had 
to develop to the present height of civilization 
through a succession of stages; this preliminary 
process is also to be shown, and hence we have a 
third division — the Plaisance. These three 
divisions we shall now still further unfold and 
organize in due order. 

I. 

Looking at the total group of buildings devoted 
to the general purposes of the Fair, those struct- 
ures which we have indicated as the common 
temple of the nations, we observe that this tem- 
ple falls into three compartments, each of which 
takes the form of a large court or open place 
surrounded by edifices. These courts are con- 



THE OBGANIZATION OF THE FAIR. 11 

nected by streets and canals ; they can be reached 
in various ways, both by land and water. As 
far as we have yet been able to find out, these 
courts have not been duly named ; indeed there 
is generally a serious want of nomenclature for 
important localities and divisions ; there seems to 
have been no name-giving genius among the 
organizers of the Fair. We shall, accordingly, 
have to make our own terms, and call the three 
divisions above mentioned the Upper, Middle 
and Lower Enclosures, which we now shall briefly 
describe and explain. It would be well if the 
reader have a plan of the grounds before him. 

1. The Upper Enclosure is irregular in shape, 
yet verges toward the figure of a parallelogram, 
running lengthwise nearly north and south. Its 
form is determined by an irregular canal, sur- 
rounding an irregular island, w^hich is in part 
given over to Nature's irregularities, and is in 
part cultivated into them. Still it shows every- 
where the hand of training, even in its wildness ; 
law it manifests in all its freedom. Its lines are 
not always straight, its angles are not always 
right angles. We may affirm that its spirit is 
that of liberty, but not license ; it is strongly 
individual, it has even its caprices, when it has a 
right to them; though ungoverned, it is not 
ungovernable. 

If now we look up from the ground plan of 
the Upper Enclosure to its counterpart in the 



78 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

skies, we observe at each point of the compass 
the four Domes, which have already been 
described in a previous study. At present we 
may note that three of these Domes, those of 
the Illmois State Building, of the Government 
Building, and of the Administration Building, 
represent authority and suggest protection from 
above. The Nation, the State, and the local 
Administration rise before the eyes of the visitor 
whenever he glances upward and around his 
horizon for external guidance or personal security. 
He adjusts his direction by them, and he must 
feel, if he be at all sensitive to the spiritual order 
in his presence, their protecting hand over him- 
self. The fourth Dome, that of the Horticul- 
tural Building, will also have its eflfect upon 
him; at least it will remind him of the sphere 
of Nature, who is still present in him, and 
is at the Fair, too, with her power and fasci- 
nation. But the other three Domes are sym- 
bolical of his country and its institutions; they 
suggest the form of government under which he 
lives and in which he believes. For we all are 
ready to say ; Look at our organization of the 
State and of the Nation; that is what we have 
done, in advance of the rest of the world ; in many 
things Europe surpasses us, and we have to fol- 
low ; but in this matter it must follow us. 
America's most distinctive contribution to the 
civilization of the race is the political one ; very 



THE OBGANIZATION OF THE FAIB. 79 

properly, therefore, is it manifested, if not ex- 
hibited, at the great Exposition, in which the 
country seeks to reveal its best self to the world. 

We note, therefore, that even the Domes sug- 
gest the division above unfolded. The Nation 
is here with its universal supremacy ; the State 
and also the local Administration are present, 
strongly individualized, yet in harmony with the 
general government. Authority is not to crush 
freedom, nor is freedom to uproot authority; 
both are necessary parts of one great structure. 

The Upper Enclosure by its lines and its shape 
hints a certain independence ; it seems to break 
over the fixed, the exact, the rectilineal, and 
make a dash for something beyond. Its Domes, 
rising out of rectangular buildings below, mount 
skyward in great sweeping curves and suggest 
aspiration for the Infinite. The landscape artist 
and the architect have wrought together to pro- 
duce a deeply harmonious Whole out of the land, 
water and structures of this Upper Enclosure. 
Still, its character is to leave much to suggestion 
and imagination ; it is not finished to the end by 
any means, and ought not to be. With all its 
classic forms there is in it a strong romantic ele- 
ment, which transcends such forms and leaps out 
toward the boundless. Moreover, we feel that 
its makers produced something beyond their 
plans ; the work is not the result of a limited, 
clear-cut, conscious purpose, but in this case the 



80 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

unexpected mingled in the scheme and largely 
helped to produce what we now behold. 

2. The Middle Enclosure, of which the Ad- 
ministration Building is the center, shows in 
many respects a strong contrast to the Upper 
Enclosure, which we have just considered. 
Everything now becomes regular, definite, fore- 
ordained by plan. There are no subtle reaches 
outward and upward for the unattained ; the 
master has evidently gotten what he wanted and 
what he intended. The Middle Enclosure has 
the form of an exact parallelogram, running 
lengthwise east and west ; it is strictly rectilineal, 
its lines do not break out of the straight direction ; 
when they change, they make a right angle, and 
move forward without turning elsewhere ; they 
reach what they set out for, and include what they 
want, and are contend. No struggle for the be- 
yond, no dashes sidewise for the unexplored ; in 
other words, we have entered the realm of Greek 
Art, beautiful beyond compare, and satisfied with 
its beauty. The Middle Enclosure is architect- 
urally a re-constituted Hellenic world; on the 
Earth to-day probably cannot be found its equal 
for suggesting the classic spirit. 

The lagoon here takes a regular shape and is 
assigned to precise boundaries ; it has also received 
special attention in the Columbian Fountain, 
placed at the head of it, and flanked by two 
electric fountains : at the other end of it is the 



THE OBGANIZATION OF THE FAIR. 81 

colossal statue of the Republic. This little sheet 
of water is thus chosen for a grand sculpturesque 
display pertaining to America, and breaks up, in 
Greek fashion, the straight architectural lines 
enclosing it everywhere, into a certain degree of 
fluidity, into the flowing lines of statuary. 

The visitor's attention will be specially directed 
to the two colonnades, which unite the parallelo- 
gram, and which make the Middle Enclosure 
complete. One of these colonnades lies south- 
ward, and connects the Machinery Building with 
the Agricultural Building ; the other lies eastward 
along the Lake, and forms one side of the par- 
allelogram. Very beautiful is the effect, which 
rises into the feeling of grandeur ; at present, 
however, we are to emphasize the idea of unity, 
which clearly lay in the plan of the architect when 
he conceived these colonnades. It is plain that 
their supreme object is an ideal one, they can 
hardly be called useful for any material purpose ; 
they link together the disjointed members of the 
Middle Enclosure, indeed, of the entire Fair, into 
a totality whose intention becomes visible most 
distinctly at these places of connection. 

Music has been specially assigned to the Mid- 
dle Enclosure ; the fixed harmonies of Architec- 
ture and Sculpture are to be made fluid, and to 
flow into sweet sounds. The rays of the sun 
work with a strange concordant power upon this 
classic scene, which old Helius seems to salute in 

6 



82 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

a kind of glad recognition, as if he again beheld 
his Hellenic domain. At night artificial illumina- 
tion gives to the Middle Enclosure a new light 
and a new meaning ; electricity with a fresh ter- 
restrial sua pours down into the clear Greek 
world and transforms it to a romantic fairyland 
in a grand spectacular scene. The resources of 
the Exposition are concentrated at this point; all 
the Fine Arts are seeking to combine together 
and to form a new supreme Art, aided by every 
cunning device of Science. 

Still the Middle Enclosure is Hellenic and has 
the Hellenic joy of life. Its architectural en- 
vironment is rectilineal and rectangular for the 
most part, like the Greek tera})le; white also it 
appears, like an ancient city of marble. Struct- 
urally it gives the feeling of completion, it is 
finished quite as it lay in the conscious purpose 
of the builder, while the Upper Enclosure is un- 
finished and unfinishable, with its larger space 
and its uncontrolled lines of land, of water, and 
of sky. Thus in many respects the spirit of the 
two Enclosures is different, if not opposite ; still 
they belong together as architectural outgrowths 
of the human mind, and make at last one temple 
of the ages. 

3. There is a third Enclosure, the lower one, 
lying behind the second, to the south. It shows 
a tendency to be triangular, and has its own 
special bit of water within, as well as the lake 



TEE OBGANIZATION OF THE FAIR. 83 

beyond. Outside exhibits are placed here, the 
overflowings of the great Fair. On the whole, 
its character is to be a receptacle of what cannot 
be put elsewhere ; it is the outhouse of the Ex- 
position, the necessary barn, stable, pen; conse- 
quently here are found the stock exhibits, the 
car shops, the places for refuse; Sewage Cleans- 
ing Works, Garbage Furnaces show that a great 
Exposition has its uninviting aspect, and cannot 
be wholly devoted to High Art. Undoubtedly 
there are many things in this Enclosure worthy 
of study, and we shall return to it hereafter, 
when we have more time. But the main fact of 
it is that of being a corner to one side; indeed, a 
three-cornered corner, which has to be placed in 
the rear of the grand edifice. 

Such are the three Enclosures, Upper, Middle 
and Lower, of the one vast Temple, embracing 
distinctively the Universal Exposition as such, 
that phase of the World's Fair which unites and 
subsumes all peoples under a common spirit 
called civilization. But there is also an Individ- 
ual Exposition, by necessity of completeness; 
this is now to be designated, being the second 
portion of the architectural as well as spiritual 
phenomenon at Jackson Park. 

II. 

The individual phase of the World's Fair has, 
as already indicated, shown itself in the build- 



84 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

ings which each State or nation has erected in its 
own way for its own behoof. They are grouped 
together in a somewhat capricious manner at the 
northern end of the grounds, where they have 
been given over to a free play of individuality, of 
course within the limits assigned. One of the 
strange facts here is that the Art Galleries Build- 
ing, with its dome, has gotten itself built in the 
midst of these structures ; it has not succeeded in 
making itself an integral part of the one great 
Templealready described above. To us such a fact 
is not an accident ; sculpture and painting are an 
individual matter in this country; they have not 
entered the universal consciousness of the peo- 
ple, as they did in ancient Greece, for example. 
Still they are present, struggling for recognition, 
trying to cross over from Europe to our country. 
Not without a playful hint does one horn of the 
Art Galleries Building touch France on the East, 
while the other horn (or annex) reaches out for 
South Dakota and for the State of Washington 
on the West. Let us deem the Building, then, 
a vast bridge for the passage of Art out of 
Europe, specially out of artistic France, over 
the sea to America, even unto the Pacific coast, 
by way of Chicago. 

The most significant division of this collection 
of edifices is the division into domestic and for- 
eign. Note the fact: each American Common- 
wealth here asserts its individuality with quite as 



THE ORGANIZATION' OF THE FAIR. 85 

much intensity as any outside nation . Still these 
Commonwealths, in their very independence, 
have a common spirit and a common principle, 
which joins them into a higher unity called the 
Nation. Each has its own home and its own 
Building, which, however, belongs to a federa- 
ation of Buildings at the World's Fair. 

Nor should we forget the wider, indeed uni- 
versal suggestion, which is born of the present 
thought. These buildings of other peoples, in- 
timate, if they do not openly express, a deeper 
unity than all differences ; they are one at bot- 
tom, and they prophesy a new United States, a 
federation of the world, which is the goal of the 
publicist as well as the dream of the poet. 

1. We may now pay some special attention to 
the domestic division, to the State Buildings 
proper. Are they all present? Call the roll; 
who is absent, and why? One looks with partic- 
ular interest toward the South in this play of in- 
dividuality, inasmuch as the South has always 
declared itself to be the champion thereof in the 
American political system, and not many years 
ago it fought for the same with a desperation 
which the centuries will not forget. Marvelous 
response ! South Carolina does not answer the 
roll-call; all the States immediately around her. 
North, South, West to the Mississippi River, are 
absent with her, while all the other Southern 
States are present with Virginia, the State 
mother I 



86 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

We hope that nobody will charge us with the 
design of stirring up sectional hate in these ob- 
servations. We are simply noting a fact at the 
World's Fair and are trying to interpret it. 
Whatever be the pretexts, legal and economical, 
for this absence, the meaning underneath must 
be read. The South-Eastern States of the Re- 
public believe so strongly in the individual side 
of their political system, that they will not unite 
with others to celebrate it, for that would be 
a kind of union. Their tendency still is, appar- 
ently, to push individuality to such a degree of 
tension that it collides with the universal element 
of the Nation. It has been left to Illinois to as- 
sert State Rights most strongly in her Building ; 
to be sure she remains inside the architectural 
federation containing nearly all the Northern 
States and most of the Southern. Even the terri- 
tories are not going to be wholly left out, for 
here is Oklahoma with the two other territories 
in a joint household. In all of which we can see 
the intense working of these two principles, 
which we have called the universal and the 
individual, in the political history of our own 
country . 

Passing now from the absentees, we may cast 
a glance at those present. Each State Building, 
as a rule, has something peculiar, something 
typical ; it designates, more or less adequately, 
the character and the history of the people who 



THE OBGANIZATION OF THE FAIR. 87 

built it. Often the distinguishing trait does not 
lie in the Architecture, which cimi be a mere imi- 
tation ; more frequently it is the interior which 
speaks. Still the very fact that a State has 
erected its Building here has of itself a cer- 
tain meaning. An unconscious symbolism runs 
through the entire mass and provokes the care- 
ful observer to fathom their significance both 
specially and in general. Moreover every 
American visitor will have an interest in making 
a call at his own State home, and contrasting it 
with others which are clustered around. A 
national feeling he will have for all, and appre- 
ciate sympathetically the neighbor ; his patriotism 
will be twofold, he belongs to a State and just 
therein belongs also to a Nation. Indeed, he 
must transcend even the limits of his Nation, and 
become cosmopolitan ; he belongs to a higher 
aggregate, whereof the next step is an indication. 
2. The foreign division of State Buildings is 
grouped together more to the East, where the 
Lake stretches pleasantly along their front. 
Different quarters of the globe and different races 
are represented in a suggestive way. What a 
separation in speech, in blood, in ideas ! Yet 
here too the conception of a common humanity 
will rise underneath all diversity ; man, rational 
man, is certainly present, and with him given, 
everything else will follow in time, even the 
Universal Republic. 



88 WOULD' S FAIB STUDIES. 

Of our North American neighbors, Mexico 
appears to be absent ; of the South American, 
Brazil, the vast new republic, sends a most 
beautiful and significant greeting in her new and 
spacious Building. The Latin family of the 
Western Continent, now wholly republican in 
form of government, has apparently some mis- 
givings, yet it is, with a few notable exceptions, 
present, and in friendly mood. Why not? The 
old historic conflict between the Teutonic and 
Romanic civilizations has probably been trans- 
planted to the New World, but here we hope to 
witness only the rivalry of peaceful development, 
and in time, that Federal unity which not only 
permits but fosters the free and full unfolding 
of each individual State. 

European nations have in a number of in- 
stances erected special Buildings. Each of 
these deserves notice, but in the present sur- 
vey we can give only general outlines. East- 
ern Europe has naturally laid less emphasis 
upon the individual element ; Russia, Austria, 
Italy have no Houses outside of the great 
Temple. England, France, and Germany, 
nations nearest to our country, though in 
different ways, have not failed to build in- 
dependent Homes along Lake Michigan. 
Undoubtedly the German Building is the 
most striking of all these special structures. 
Indeed, Germany has, on the whole, shown her- 



THE OBGANIZATION OF THE FAIR, 89 

self the most powerful and aggressive nation at 
the Fair. On all sides her mighty national spirit 
asserts itself in surpassing works; the new con- 
sciousness, born of the united German people, 
reveals itself everywhere in imperial strength and 
grandeur. 

From the far Orient representative Buildings 
spring up and fraternally salute the remote Occi- 
dent on its own soil. Ceylon, the East Indies, 
Japan, each with its crystallized civilization of 
thousands of years, have begun to move West, 
and surprise us here by making a sudden leap 
half-way round the globe. It is probably but a 
short visit at present; still the suggestion is that 
the whole earth is encircled with a zone of 
nations held together by a common bond. But 
how does the exclusion of the Chinese by the 
United States fit in at this point? China, the 
greatest Oriental power, very naturally refuses to 
show herself. 

Such, then, is the general organization of the 
World's Fair, with its two fundamental phases, 
the universal and the individual, revealing them- 
selves particularly in architecture. This division 
goes down to the deepest dualism of civilization, 
indicating the chief antithesis of the human mind 
as well as of human history, out of which, how- 
ever, is to come the new synthesis of mankind. 
But the Exposition, to be complete, must give 
some hint of the road on which man has traveled 
to his present state. 



90 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

III. 

This makes the third division, the preliminary 
part, which is known as the Midway Plaisance. 
Note that it is in the form of an avenue leading to 
the main grounds, wherein one may find a sugges- 
tion of its character. It hints the path of human 
progress ; it may be called the highway of civi- 
lization. We can enter where it begins and pass 
down its stream to the place where it loses itself 
in the great ocean of the Exposition ; that is the 
natural course. Or we can reverse the process: 
we can drop back into the Plaisance, when 
wearied and foredone by the overwhelming ten- 
sion and earnestness of the industrial battle among 
the most highly civilized peoples. What a relief 
to retire several degrees behind the car of 
progress, and look once more upon the childhood 
of the race ! It is a new delight to chaff with a 
semi-barbarous Oriental, or to hobnob with a 
cannibal. 

We deem it, therefore, in keeping with the 
character of the Plaisance, that it has been made 
a place of relaxation and entertainment. It has 
many promiscuous kinds of diversion; refresh- 
ment for body and mind it offers in abundance ; 
people here eat and drink and are amused.. Un- 
bend the bow a little, O civilized man, else it 
will surely snap at Chicago. 

But instruction may be easily combined with 



THE ORGANIZATION OF THE FAIB. 91 

relaxation. The ethnical display is of such a 
nature that we can calmly look back throu^^h the 
whole line of our ancestors quite to the human 
beginning. The African savage is here from 
Dahomey ; not far off is the American Indian ; 
let the visitor take his choice for a starting point. 
Asiatic civilization is seen in a great variety of 
products and persons; the Turanian, the Semi- 
tic and the Aryan races are represented in the 
Turk, the Arab, and the Persian. Finally Euro- 
pean peoples are shown in their more primitive 
condition by a series of villages — German, Aus- 
trian, Irish. Nor must we forget the Mongolian of 
Farther Asia, with a civilization of his own, lying 
quite outside of the world's movement. What 
a conglomeration of races and nations, histori- 
cal, unhistorical, pre-historical, and even extra- 
historical ! The confusion of tongues has come 
again, and that ancient Asiatic symbol, the Tower 
of Babel, is renewed with a fresh meaning in the 
Plaisance. 

But under all this diversity and discord one can 
hear a subdued, but very persistent, note of har- 
mony. The nations are going toward a common 
civilization ; nay, toward a common government. 
The Asiatic confusion of the Plaisance is mov- 
ing — has to move — into the universal order, 
which is hinted in the Exposition. There is but 
one road to the great end; and both the road and 
the end are symbolized in the very plan of the 



92 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES, 

World's Fair before us. The ethnical, political, 
and religious chaos of the Orient is set forth in a 
striking picture ; but its future lines in the direc- 
tion of a cosmos are also laid down with some pre- 
cision. Here we shall have to pass out of the 
Plaisance for the present; but you and I, reader, 
will come back to it again. 

If the present study has succeeded in 
its object, the student thereof has now 
before his mind the organization of the total 
Fair with its leading divisions and sub-divi- 
sions. Again, we repeat that its organizers had 
probably no such conscious plan, nor did they go 
through any such process of thought as that 
above unfolded. Men of action are not usually 
thinkers — their thought is their deed, and over- 
much reflection fritters away the power of will, 
as the universal poet has shown in the case of 
Hamlet. Then, too, in any great epoch-making 
event, a spirit mightier than man takes posses- 
sion of man, and causes him to produce a work 
clearly in advance of his ordinary power, quite 
beyond the range of his conscious self. 

Who first conceived the idea of a Fair? Hard 
to tell ; it has a history, it is an evolution of time. 
An ancient writer informs us that already in 
antiquity one of the Ptolemies caused all the 
products of Egypt to be displayed at a stated 
period, and in a given place. Fairs for the sale 
and purchase of goods have been common 



THE ORGANIZATIOy OF THE FAIB. 93 

throughout Europe and Asia. But the French 
may reasonably claim to be the originators of the 
universal exposition in the modern sense, and 
they generally trace it from their great awaken- 
ing called the Revolution. The spirit of uniting 
all nations into one vast brotherhood was then 
born, and has never since died out in the hearts 
of Frenchmen. They call it the solidarity of 
peoples, and one of their political watchwords is 
fraternity. It is true that they seem not to be 
ready just now to fraternize with their German 
brothers across the Rhine, but that feeling is 
doubtless temporary. 

In fact, France stands for the universal side 
of the idea in all things; there is something 
Roman and imperial even in her republican char- 
acter. On the other hand, she has little feeling 
for the individual side of the idea, which is 
speciall}' emphasized in Anglo-Saxondom. A 
complete World's Exposition must bring together 
both sides of the grand dualism, and to a degree 
harmonize them, hence one Tvatches their mani- 
festation at Jackson Park with so much interest. 
We Americans, filled with our strong and youth- 
ful national life, must think that the grand new 
synthesis of the W^orld's History is taking place 
just now in our own land, and that a colossal 
outburst thereof may be witnessed not only in 
the present Exposition, but above all, in the city 
where it is held. 



THE GREEK COLUMN' AT THE 
FAIR. 

There can be hardly a question that the archi- 
tecture of the World's Fair is its greatest ex- 
hibit. It is the first thing which one looks at on 
entering, .it is the last thing which one lingers 
over while departing. Not merely the beauty of 
the appearance is fascinating, but there is felt in 
it a gigantic power of construction; a colossal 
architectonic energy pervades the whole, which 
goes home at once to the spirit of the beholder, 
whether he knows much or little about the prin- 
ciples of architecture. There is a voice here 
which speaks immediately to every human soul 
out of these buildings ; truly it is spirit uttering 
itself to spirit by way of construction. 

Now this architecture of the Fair is essentially 
Greek architecture. The breath of Hellas stirs 
(94) 



THE GBEEK COLUMN AT THE FAIR. 95 

in it all; that marvellous people, who lay 
anciently around the ^Egean and on its islands, 
and who were the givers of beautiful form to 
mankind, have transmitted their ideal shapes 
with a new life to the temple before us, this 
vast Greek temple re-born on another continent. 
Still we do not intend to affirm that the archi- 
tecture is exclusively Greek. Time has furnished 
its contribution, and time has brought forth im- 
portant things since the age of Greece. The 
Roman has lent his greatest structural product, 
the arch, which we can see here in hundreds of 
forms, though they are quite under the spell of 
the Greek enchanter. The Renascence, with its 
fresh transformation of the classic world shows 
itself everywhere in these buildings ; but the 
Renascence itself was mainly a new birth of 
ancient Hellas. Indeed, there is a going back- 
wards to a certain extent, a reaching out of 
Europe into Asia in the structures of the World's 
Fair; they have a colossality which belongs to 
the vast edifices of Egypt and the Orient. Little 
Greece had, on the whole, buildings in propor- 
tion to her size ; moreover she loved moderation 
and harmony; the unmeasured and the immeas- 
urable she eschewed as alien to her genius. 
Limits she rigidly set for others and for herself, 
but in those limits she demanded perfection, and 
in that way satisfied her infinite nature. Exter- 
nalmagrnitude was not her architectural element. 



96 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

but constructive completeness ; hence when she 
produced a form, it has remained unsurpassed 
and unsurpassable in its kind. 

The World's Fair is accordingly pervaded by 
an Oriental feeling for magnificence, for huge 
measurements, for colossality, which is, indeed, 
profoundly harmonious with the American 
national spirit. The great country stretches the 
mind of its people, and makes it mighty and 
aspiring, truly limit-transcending; hence arises 
a certain spiritual similitude between the Ameri- 
can Republic and the Oriental Empire. Still 
the gigantesque is barbarous till it be trained to 
order and harmony; such training has been the 
special function of the Greek spirit in the 
World's History. As the Greek heroes of civi- 
lization, Hercules, Theseus, Bellerophon, had to 
subdue primeval monsters of various kinds, so 
Greek art has had to transform the monstrous in 
shape, and to subject the colossal to the law of 
beauty. This function it has most nobly fulfilled 
at Jackson Park. 

It is no wonder, therefore, that a Greek atmos- 
phere hovers over the Fair. Its architects, with 
true insight, called up that old form-compelling 
Hellenic spirit, with its sense of harmony, order, 
and moderation, that it might subject American 
colossality, which, without such subjection, could 
easily run over into the extravagant and beget 
monsters. Then we should witness a huge pri- 



THE GREEK COLUMN AT THE FAIR. 97 

meval deinotherioii of a Fair, instead of a well- 
ordered, civilized product, the last utterance of 
man's reason and sense of beauty. But mark it 
well I the magnitude must not be left out, for it 
is ours, and we must have it ; never again can we 
be shut up in that little Greek temple by the 
Ilissus. Yet that temple is just the wondrous 
transforming power which is present in these 
buildings; hence it can be studied with profit by 
the visitor who wishes to look into the sources of 
things. 

That is, we must now pay some attention to 
Greek Architecture. Moreover, as there is little 
time for details, we wish to push to the heart of 
the matter as soon as possible. Now the central 
form upon which Greek architecture rests, and 
around which its development turns, is the 
column. The Greek column, repeating itself in 
a line till it forms the colonnade, then turninof at 
a ri^ht anijie and continuino- the same line in the 
same manner, till it forms the figure of a parallel- 
ogram, produces the shape and the enclosure of 
the Greek temple, the holy place of the gods. 
This columnar line or colonnade we shall see at 
the World's Fair in many different situations; it 
always calls up its Hellenic home, and has a 
beauty of its own, which can only be named 
Greek from its character and origin. It has 
certainly imparted its spirit to its new abode by 
the side of Lake Michiiran. 



98 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

There are several hundred Grreek columns to be 
seen at Jackson Park ; indeed the eye lights on 
them with every sweep of vision indoors and out. 
Let the visitor stop before one of them ere he 
gets too tired; let him sit down and look at it 
from top to bottom ; then let him begin his wrestle 
with it to seize its meaning. What is it saying? 
For it is an utterance, nay, the most distinct 
architectural utterance that has ever been given 
to a material thing. 

But at first he will probably hear no response, 
he has not yet learned the alphabet of its lan- 
guage. He will look again, and begin to scruti- 
nize more closely ; he will observe that the column 
has three main parts ; a lower part, which passes 
by degrees from the horizontal pavement into the 
middle part; this middle part bears strongly up- 
ward in a perpendicular line to the third part, 
which passes in its turn gradually into the hori- 
zontal beam resting upon it, and called the archi- 
trave. These three parts of the column, lower, 
middle and upper, have been respectively desig- 
nated as the base, the shaft and the capital, as 
he will learn from any book on the subject. But 
the book will probably give him no clue to the 
meaning of these parts ; so he will begin again, 
delighted but not satisfied with what he has 
gotten. 

As he looks up the second time at the heavy 
architrave passing from column to column, an 



THE GBEEK COLUMN AT THE FAIR. 99 

idea strikes him, very simple, but very necessary 
at this point. The column is made to support 
the architrave, to support the whole entablature, 
indeed the roof and ceiling it helps to support. 
That is just its meaning then : Support. It says 
to the person entering below: I shall not fall on 
your head, or let this roof fall on your head; be 
of good cheer, go ye in with courage, not fearing 
my weakness. So it begins to talk, and is 
evidently not yet done talking to the person who 
can hear its speech. 

The total building now has differentiated itself 
into two portions : that which supports and that 
which is supported. Moreover it is clear that 
each portion is to express its own character 
through its very construction, and each detail is 
to say what it is there for. Architecture is to 
make every form tell its own story ; ornament is 
not to be hung on the outside, but is to spring 
from within, uttering what the part means. 

The column, therefore, signifies the supporter, 
the upholder, the mighty Atlas with broad 
shoulders and strong body. Still the column is 
not to assume the human shape, which is the 
abode of spirit and of freedom, though it can 
have and does have a suggestion of man's physi- 
cal frame bearing the burdens of life. There are 
a few Greek instances of the human form used as 
a column, for example, the caryatids; but their 
employment is so rare that it indicates that the 



100 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

Greek, after becoming acquainted with them, 
rejected them. Still, we may trace a glint of 
man's fate, toil-enduring, in the column. 

It is now in order for us to go back and pick 
up the threefold division of the column, and see 
what we can make of that. The lower part, the 
base, has a number of forms, technically called 
mouldings, all of which express the various 
phases of the transition from the pavement or 
stylobat, which is rectangular and horizontal in 
the Greek temple, to the shaft of the column, 
which is round and perpendicular. Let us notice 
some of these forms. The first is a square block 
called the plinth ; its rectangular shape suggests 
the stylobat below it, but its limited form suggests 
its adaptation to the column above it. We see 
that the stylobat of the whole temple has become 
in the plinth the stylobat of the column. The 
next part of the base is called the torus, which 
is both round and bulged, or oval: it has both 
the name and the form of a cushion pressed out 
by a superincumbent weight. Thus the torus is 
an important step in the development of the 
column, having become circular, and suggesting 
great pressure from above. The third part turns 
inwards, and shows the shape opposite to the torus, 
being hollowed out and bent inside, and thus show- 
ing a collection and concentration of the power 
which upholds. Without this inner gathering of 
strength, the torus would have a crushed appear- 



THE GBEEK COLUMN AT THE FAIR. 101 

ance, being unable to rally under the weight. 
Then the torus is usually repeated with a swell 
outwards. Thus a double movement is indicated 
like that of the burden-bearer heaving his load ; 
and the whole base becomes organic, alive and 
toiling, with expiration and inspiration, with a 
diastole and systole in stone. Having grasped 
this thought we are already beyond the base, we 
have made the transition into the shaft. 

Looking back at the base for a moment, do we 
not see the development in its mouldings from a 
flat pavement to an upright form which supports? 
Behold the column rising up and standing* as it 
were on its feet. So we must read this architec- 
tural language. 

Now, we may consider the second part of the 
column, called the shaft. The first fact concern- 
ing it is its rotundity, it throws off all corners and 
angles, it gathers itself about its' center and 
strives upward like an organic object, a tree for 
example ; it is complete and without superfluity 
of material. The second fact is, the shaft is 
fluted, has a series of perpendicular grooves cov- 
ering its whole surface. Many difierent effects 
have been ascribed to this device, but the main 
one is that the eye is caught and carried up by 
these straight lines on the shaft, whereas the 
sight would glance off from a round smooth sur- 
face. So the shaft asserts strongly its erectness 
under its burden bv these flutings, it stands 



102 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

straight; see, it can walk with its load, if need 
be. Moreover a certain variety of light and 
shade comes from the edges and hollows, which 
gives to the column a picturesque tinge, a change- 
ful play of features like that of life. Note 
another fine point in every truly Greek column ; 
there is a slight increase of its diameter for about 
one-third of its height, then a slight diminution 
of the same till the capital, causing a small swell 
in the body of the shaft, a kind of corporeal 
rising and falling, which gives a suggestion of 
movement and of vitality under the great pressure 
of the burden. A mere mechanical uniformity 
of diminution upwards in a column would kill it 
dead to a Greek eye. 

The capital is the transition from the perpen- 
dicular shaft to the horizontal architrave, the first 
indication of which are two or three grooves which 
run around the top of the column at right angles 
to the flutings. These grooves cut off, as it were, 
the perpendicular lines, or hint their conclusion, 
for shortly the echinus begins struggling outward 
and upward in the form of a rounded protruding 
bulge, suggesting, like the torus of the base, a 
strong pressure from above. Then follows the 
abacus, a square block like the plinth of the base, 
wherein we seethe round column passing into the 
rectangular form which immediately becomes the 
super-imposed architrave. Here the column is at 
end, having taken upon its shoulder its burden, 



THE GBEEK COLUMN AT THE FAIR. 103 

or the first portion thereof. As the base is the 
transition from the flat pavement below into the 
upright shaft, so the capital is the transition out 
of the upright shaft into the flat ceiling above, 
and all the mouldings express various stages of 
the transition. 

Now the reader has, we hope, seen the column 
rising up from its prostrate position, setting its 
foot firmly upon the stylobat, then erecting its 
total body slowly, slowly, and finally elevating 
its head, and assuming its great burden with a 
triumphant uprightness. All its actions, as we 
may call them, have uttered themselves in sug- 
gestive forms, which though of stone, show a 
marvellous expression of life. 

Yet they are not alive, are not imitations 
either of the animal or veo^etable kinojdom. The 
column has a certain resemblance to a man or to 
a tree, but it is neither, for its supreme function 
is to support a burden, which is not the supreme 
function of a man or a tree, though they can 
support a burden, too. 

The column must develop its parts logically 
from its thought; it resembles the human body 
or the trunk of an oak only in part; when it 
seeks to become animal or vegetable in form, 
then it is losing the idea which created it origi- 
nally, and is getting degenerate. 

Now for the next important fact about the 
Greek column. Its law being given as above, it 



104 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

can be infinitely varied within those limits. Take 
for instance, the Ionic base which is essentially 
the one above described ; its torus can be single or 
double ; its hollow ( scotia) can be single or double 
or treble ; its torus can be fluted horizontally, 
emphasizing still the horizontal stylobat; new 
mouldings can be introduced, giving new shades 
of transition, yet they all must in one way or an- 
other express just that transition. Nothing can 
be added simply for the sake of ornament, every 
part, however minute, must spring from within 
and show itself a stage of the process called the 
base, for the base of a true Greek column is by 
no means a thing defunct, but has the variety 
of life. 

Thus perhaps every temple in Greece had a 
different base for an Ionic column ; new turns 
were given, with their fresh suggestions, but 
they all had to be an integral phase of the tran- 
sition from the flat stylobat to the upright shaft. 
Here was the field for the imagination of the 
Greek architect, he did not simply copy, he 
created new forms, of course within the law and 
limits of his Art. The law of the base is, that 
it is the transition from a platform to a pillar, 
from the square to the round, from the prostrate 
to the upright. The plinth, the torus, and the 
scotia are given to the architect, but he has to 
make them tell their story in a new work of art. 

Let us compare this procedure with that of 



TEE GREEK COLUMN' AT THE FAIR. 105 

the Greek poet. The dramatist took the same 
leo^end which others before him had taken 
and handled, but he filled it with new motives, 
new touches/ n«vv traits of character. The 
mythical outline was always given him, and was 
pre-supposed in the mindsof his audience, yet this 
outline he was to endow with new life, ^schy- 
lus, Sophocles and Euripedes have all treatecl 
the subject of Electra, yet with what a differ- 
ence ! Greek architects have treated the base of 
an Ionic column at Athens, at Samos, at Priene, 
yet with what a difference ! The epic poets sang 
the tale of Troy for a thousand years or more ; 
they did not simply imitate one another, but 
they renewed and transfigured the tale, making 
it reflect each passing epoch. So the Greek 
builder did with his temple, his column, even 
with the base thereof, which had to have its own 
individuality in every case. Your body in gen- 
eral outline is the same as mine, but the life in 
each body is diff"erent; still more different is the 
soul. 

What is true of the base is true of the shaft 
and of the capital ; they are made to vary, to give 
new forms of statement to their idea. The flut- 
ings of the shaft are sixteen in the old temples, 
twenty in the later as the Parthenon, and even 
twenty-four in the Corinthian order. The 
height of the column varies in the Doric Order 
from four to six diameters; that is, from a 



106 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

heavy, almost oppressive raassiveness to a slight 
slender shape. In like manner, the Doric capitals 
are very different from one another in the 
preserved monuments ; in some* the echinus 
reaches out in a clumsy excess of strength, in 
others it becomes almost elegant in its modesty. 
So the Greek architectural genius plays with 
these forms, giving a fresh turn to the expression. 
But the shaft had always to be round, to be fluted, 
to be a support of the burden above. The 
capital had always to be the transition from the 
shaft to the architrave. The idea had always to 
be present, and every part was to lead back to 
that idea as its source. 

In all these parts of the column' we note an 
undulation, strong in the base, very delicate in 
the shaft (entasis), pronounced in the capital. 
Then there is a hint of the same wave-like rising 
and falling in various mouldings (called cyma 
and cymation). Thus the suggestion of move- 
ment, of breathing perchance, runs through the 
entire column. But when the capital changes 
to a new shape, and the base is added to it, and 
the shaft becomes more slender, then we have the 
differentiation into Orders, which is indicated 
especially by the column, yet also by the entab- 
lature. There are fundamentally but two Orders 
of Greek Architecture, Doric and Ionic, though 
others were added which are only variations of 
these two. This twofold division corresponds 



THE GREEK COLUMN AT THE FAIR. 107 

indeed to the dualism inherent in the Greek 
national spirit. There were the Dorians whose 
chief political representatives were the Spartans, 
strict, legal, moulded into men by laws and insti- 
tutions. The lonians were represented by the 
Athenians, active in spirit, seeking the new, limit- 
defying. As all Greece finally ranged itself on 
these two lines, so Architecture very early showed 
two tendencies. The Ionic Order seems to have 
specially flourished in the Ionic colonies of Asia 
Minor, and has a certain leaning toward an 
Oriental fullness and luxury of form. The 
Doric Order shows its completest early develop- 
ment in the West, in the colonies of Sicily, which 
were mostly Doric. Thus Orient and Occident 
cast their shadow into the divisions of Greek 
Architecture. 

In the buildings at the World's Fair, the Doric 
column is rarely employed. It is a little too 
heavy and solid, we may say, a little too sincere 
and truth-telling to permit itself to be made out 
of staff and then to assume the appearance of 
stone. The Doric character, as illustrated by the 
Spartans, was blunt, direct, not given to show or 
ornament. Moreover the Doric column was built 
to stand forever, not for six months, it has in it 
an eternal element, being made to support the 
temple of the God. The architects of the Fair 
Buildings showed both their judgment and taste 
when they selected the Corinthian column as the 



108 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

best for their purpose. Still the eager student 
will find four large Doric columns in the front of 
the Choral Building, where he can trace all their 
characteristics in shaft, in capital and entabla- 
ture, for they have no base. The Ionic column 
is used much more frequently at the Fair than 
the Doric; notably the x\rt Building has Ionic 
colonnades, which are doubtless intended to sug- 
gest the great original home of the Fine Arts. 
Athenian genius, being Ionic, is very properly 
called to mind by the architecture of that temple 
where the world's artistic skill is exhibited in 
sculpture and painting. Even the caryatids of 
the Acropolis are not omitted in this suggestive 
structure. 

The two columns, Doric and Ionic, have been 
compared to the forms of man and woman. The 
Doric is stronger, not so high in proportion to 
its thickness, it shows greater capacity for bear- 
ing its burden. It has no base, it stands firml}' 
on the pavement of the temple, and connects im- 
mediately therewith, making no apology. That 
is, it has no transition from the stylobat into the 
shaft, brusque it seems, laconic in its mouldings, 
which are the speech of Architecture. On the 
contrary, the polished social Ionian demands a 
mediation between two such opposites as the 
horizontal and the perpendicular, or prostrate- 
ness and uprightness. Nay, he wishes to vary 
in many ways this mediation, and hence the 



THE GREEK COLUMN AT THE FAIR. 109 

manifold forms of the Ionic base. The Doric 
Order has a capital, simple, expressive, direct. 
Yet, if there be a transition above out of the 
shaft, why should there not be a transition below 
into the shalt? Logic would seem to demand it, 
as well as symmetry. The absence of the base 
remains an instance of Dorian straightforward- 
ness, perchance too of abruptness which may lack 
courtesy. 

So the Ionic column introduces the base with 
good reason ; then it lengthens its shaft in pro- 
portion to the diameter; finally it changes radi- 
cally the capital by employing volutes, or spirals 
like the ram's horn, or snail. This curling up 
hints how the lonians took the heavy burden, the 
architrave of life, in contrast to the Dorians; the 
former showed more repugnance to it, they took 
it like a worm trodden upon, while the latter 
grimly broadened out and stoically accepted the 
great weight from above. The Ionian turned 
back into himself, manifested more internality, 
emotion, sensitiveness; he recoiled invariably 
when the pressure of fate came upon him out- 
wardly. 

Very significant is it that the Ionic column 
makes a different appearance when viewed from 
the side and when viewed from the front. Hence 
it was suitable only for a colonnade, or straight 
line of columns, and not for a peristyle with four 
corners. Herein the Doric capital is superior, 



110 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

SO that the Ionic Athenians employed it for their 
great temple, the Parthenon, also for the These- 
ion. The Doric capital with its round echinus 
and its square abacus, was the same on every 
side, it presented always a face to fate, being 
equal to the emergency ; while the softer Ionic 
genius could go straight ahead on the line of 
prosperity, but could not meet the angular turn. 
Makeshifts were resorted to for the corner col- 
umn, but the insufficiency was felt; Greece could 
not go back to Doric strictness and simplicity, so 
the column being forced to change became 
Corinthian. 

The Corinthian column is essentially derived 
from the Ionic, whose base, shaft and capital are 
retained with some additions and variations. 
The shaft has twenty-four flutings, is higher in 
proportion to the diameter, and thus becomes still 
more slender and graceful, than the Ionic, while, 
compared to Doric, it shows weakness and effem- 
inacy. The chief change is noticeable in the 
capital, which is now surrounded with the leaf of 
the acanthus, suggesting the flower. The vol- 
utes are transformed into four simple scrolls 
equi-distant, so that the Corinthian column can be 
employed for the peristyle at the corners as well 
as the Doric. This is its great advance over the 
Ionic, and is what brought it into universal use in 
the later period of Greece and Kome. 

But the acanthus leaf is not structural, it does 



THE GREEK COLUMN' AT THE FAIR. Ill 

not suggest the idea of support, however graceful 
in form. On the contrary, it is an external 
decoration put upon the column and counter to 
its real meaning. Gone is the old Doric sense 
which made every moulding express the one pur- 
pose ; even the Ionic freedom is transcended. 
The capital has, therefore, broken loose from 
the law, and the result is, soon every kind of 
ornament is sculptured upon it — men's heads, 
animals, bunches of grapes, emblems of all 
imaginable kinds. 

It is manifest that the other parts of the column 
cannot be henceforth held to their structural 
meaning, but ornamentation will break out every- 
where over them. Finally, in the Roman time 
the Greek column as a whole will be reduced to a 
decoration, it will no longer show support, but 
will ornament a wall, or an arch of some kind. 
Greek Architecture, like all Greek art, becomes 
a Roman plaything. Yet the Romans adopted 
specially the Corinthian Order, not eschewing the 
other Orders. Indeed, they made fresh combina- 
tions, so that writers have assigned to them two 
new Orders, the Tuscan and the Composite. 

We have now seen the Greek column develop 
into the Roman world, in which its architectural 
meaning is essentially supplanted. For the Ro- 
mans have their own upholder in construction, 
namely the Arch. The column, therefore, is not 
a necessity to Rome as it was to Greece ; it has 



112 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

become really a structural superfluity, yet.it is 
stil! applied, not from any inner need, but from 
its beauty. But when beauty springs not from 
within, it is not likely to be very beautiful. The 
Roman column lacks, accordingly, the spontane- 
ous grace and spirit of the Greek columns, it 
shows that it is an imitation, indeed a stranger 
at Rome, in spite of Greek architects, who were 
often employed by Romans. 

A slight examination will show that the Corin- 
thian is the dominating Greek column at the 
World's Fair. For a good reason, doubtless, this 
column with its decorative character lends itself 
more easily to mere ornamentation than the Ionic, 
not to speak of the Doric. The fine large Corin- 
thian columns in front of the Railway Terminal 
Building are simply ornamental; the arch along- 
side of them does the supporting, or can do it 
fully ; the columns have really no inner construc- 
tive purpose. Yet who would wish them away? 
The acanthus leaf on the capital is already an 
ornament, and tinges the whole character of the 
column, however massive. Put a Doric column 
in place of the Corinthian here, and the discord 
would be intolerable. 

But the Corinthian column can also stand 
alone and bear its burden, as it did in the old 
classic time. A striking instance at the World's 
Fair is the grand colonnade, the so-called peri- 
style, in which the Corinthian column is not orna- 



THE GREEK COLUMN AT THE FAIR. 113 

mental, but is inherently structural, being used 
for support and not for decorating an arch. 
Thus it is employed for a twofold purpose, for 
construction and for ornament, both of which 
spring from its double nature. It is hence the 
most available of all the kinds of columns, and 
gives a Corinthian unity and harmony to this 
varied architectural appearance. 

That which the column supports is called the 
entablature, w^hich has three parts — architrave, 
frieze, cornice. The characteristic of the entab- 
lature is, therefore, that it is supported, being 
upheld by the columns. Its general direction is 
horizontal, it lies down and rests upon its sup- 
porter. The column is, accordingly, the field of 
two contradictory forces, that which presses down- 
ward and that which holds up ; and everywhere 
the column is to show some phase of the conflict. 
The torus in the base hints the crushino: weis^ht 
transmitted from above ; the shaft asserts the 
ability to meet the burden ; so through all its 
mouldings the column shows its conflict and the 
solution thereof — the thing of gravity is to 
overcome gravity through construction. 

A short designation of the entablature may be 
here permitted. The architrave is the cross beam 
extending from column to column, and thus it 
unites the separate columns into a colonnade, 
which encloses the temple. Accordingly its lines 
lay stress upon the horizontal. The frieze unites 

8 



114 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

this colonnade or first enclosure to the second en- 
closure called the cella, or walled abode of the 
God ; hence it had the sculptured scenes of di- 
vine fable. Also it had three lines called 
triglyphs, perpendicular, and thereby in contrast 
with the horizontal direction of the architrave. 
The cornice, in a series of significant mouldings, 
reached out over the entire entablature and col- 
onnade, and suggested the covering inside as 
well as outside, inasmuch as the ceiling lay back 
of the cornice. Finally we must take note of the 
triangular gable or pediment, the form of which 
was first made to carry off the rain ; thus it hints 
the roof, which is both to cover and to shed 
water, and must have, accordingly, its own cor- 
nice with suggestive mouldings. This pediment 
was soon observed by the keen eye of the Greek 
artist, and was employed for a group of statuary 
representing some mythical deed of the God and 
thus showing a sculpturesque drama, since the 
very form of the pediment suggests the begin- 
nitig, culmination and end of an action. 

Another important element in Greek Architec- 
ture is intercolumniation, or the distance between 
the columns measured by the diameters of the 
same. The Doric solidity passing into Ionic 
grace can be reduced to figures in this way; one 
can observe the difference between Spartan mas- 
siveness and Athenian versatility in the hand of 
the workman. The Doric column is from 4 to 



THE GBEEK COLUMN AT THE FAIR. 115 

6 diameters, with an intercolumniation of one 
diameter and a third; the Ionic rises to 8 diam- 
eters and even to 9 J, while the intercolumniation 
reaches two diameters. Let the student test 
these measurements with his eye and his feeling; 
let him look at a Doric and then at an Ionic col- 
onnade, and he will see the spiritual tendencies of 
the two branches of the Hellenic race expressed 
in fc'tone. Finally the Corinthian Order tran- 
scends the Ionic in the height of its columns 
and in the width of its intercolumniations, there- 
by quite reaching the limit of constructive possi- 
bility. For the horizontal architrave has to span 
the distance between the columns,- yet it cannot 
pass beyond a certain length with safety. The 
Corinthian column is really calling for the Roman 
arch to help it support its superincumbent bur- 
den ; the Roman arch came and took its place, 
reducing it to a mere ornament. Thus pure 
Greek architecture, like Hellas itself, comes to 
an end in the supremacy of Rome. Still it is not 
lost by any means ; on the contrary, it has begun 
a process of evolution, which reaches down time 
to the present moment. 

Herewith we touch the historic development 
of the column outside of Greece, though in 
Greece it attained its supreme artistic bloom. 
For the column has a history, as well as the 
nation, and that history extends backward and 
forward, in time and in place. The spirit of the 



116 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

ages has imprinted itself on the shaft of stone ; 
the column has unfolded into new forms and new 
uses with the movement of the race. 

On the one hand the column reaches backward 
out of Greece to the Orient. The volutes of the 
Ionic column may be seen in the ruins of Assyrian 
architecture, and are decidedly suggested by cer- 
tain capitals found at Persepolis. Even more 
decidedly has the Doric column been found in 
Egypt at the tombs of Beni Hassan ; the flutings, 
the simple shaft, the abacus of the capital with 
the architrave resting upon the same, show such 
an affinity that these Beni Hassan columns have 
been called the proto-Dorian. Still this seems 
to have been a strange prophetic accident; the 
Egyptian column in general has a vegetable sug- 
gestion, it is a reed or stalk with leaves around 
the capital, which takes the form of a flow^er on 
top, and with decorations and inscriptions cover- 
ing its shaft. It is not ruled by the pure idea of 
support. Sometimes it assumes the human shape 
and countenance. We may note that the Corin- 
thian column is, to a certain extent, a going back 
to Egypt as well as a going forward to Rome. 
The preliminary stage to ideal completeness and 
the dejyeneratins: stasfe afterwards are often simi- 
lar ; man goes down by the same road on which 
he climbs up, and witnesses the same general 
appearance of things. 

On the other hand the column reaches forward 



THE GREEK COLUMN' AT THE FAIR. 117 

out of Greece into the Occident. We have 
already noted what became of the Greek column 
at Eome; it was mainly supplanted by the arch 
and reduced to an external decoration. Yet it 
becomes again organic when it is made to support 
a Roman arch, which, however, destroys the 
Greek entablature. Then the column turns 
Byzantine, it twists and writhes, it is painted 
over with the figures of demons, with Hell itself. 
In great tribulation does the old Greek column 
enter the Christian world, it too has to be sent to 
Inferno, and is there tortured by fiends, along with 
the rest of the heathen. Thus with many change- 
ful destinies it passes through the Middle Ages, 
when the Renascence restores it to its pristine 
shape, yet puts it into new relations. From the 
Renascence it has been transmitted to the Chicago 
Fair, at which it is playing a most important 
part. The Greek column gives to these vast 
buildings a classic order and beauty, and is the 
chief means of uniting them into one great 
Temple of Industry, by connecting them directly 
through colonnades. Wherever the Greek column 
appears, whether in a great edifice, or in a little 
exhibit, the fundamental note of harmony is 
struck, to which the architecture of the World's 
Fair is attuned. This harmony is felt as soon as 
one enters the grounds and takes his first look. 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. 

The great majority of visitors, if they were 
asked to state what they consider the heart of the 
Fair, would mention at once the Court of Honor, 
that portion which we have above named the 
Middle Enclosure. Yet there is another Court of 
quite equal importance, usually called the Wooded 
Island, which name in these studies we shall 
have to change into Upper Enclosure. These 
two Enclosures are to be considered separately 
and together, in their distinction and in their 
unity, ere we can grasp the most original part of 
the great Fair, that part by which it is destined 
to be longest remembered. 

What is the charm in these two bits of space, 
environed by edifices? Wherein does it lie? The 
(118) 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. 119 

answer is, mainly in the architecture. To be sure, 
there is a subtle combination with nature — with 
h\goon, lake, trees, sky, sunlight. Moreover the 
effect is instantaneous, there is no need of 
any deep scrutiny or analysis to discover the 
hidden beauty. No learning is required, no 
great knowledge; the rustic who beholds it is 
impressed quite as profoundly as the ingenious 
critic. The whole speaks to the people directly; 
every man, wise and foolish, exclaims on 
seeing it. How beautiful! One can hear the 
hard-headed farmer and his wife, least senti- 
mental of human beings, indulge in spontaneous 
bursts of rhapsody at the scene, though they 
would prefer more drapery on some of the 
statues. Not the particular part is specially 
beautiful, as a rule, but the whole ; never before 
was a people so driven to see a grand totality; 
the vast details are completely overmastered by 
the mighty unit3% and are sunk into a single all- 
subduing impression. This is indeed the triumph 
of the World's Fair Art. 

Still, the thoughtful spectator, after indulging 
his feeling of beauty for a while, will become 
sated with mere feeling; his intelligence also will 
demand a little food, particularly a little of this 
food of the Gods. He will seek to find the 
charm, and to hedge it in, partially at least, with 
a kind of statement, for he has somebody to 
whom he wishes to impart the idea of the great 



120 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

appearance. A picture is not enough; the word, 
spoken or written, has to come to the aid of the 
Fair, stamping it at last with the universality of 
thouojht. 

The first matter to be brought before the mind 
is the conception ot an Enclosure which surrounds 
a given space and enfolds the assembled people. 
Yet it is without a roof, it is open to nature's 
light. Thus it produces a twofold influence: 
it is an interior, while it has all the advantages 
of an exterior, with its colonnades, pediments, 
fagades. Each single edifice is thus made to be 
a part of the grand new edifice which is the 
Enclosure. No building stands now for itself 
merely, it is reduced to being a part of the 
greater order above it, which is the enclosed to- 
tality of structures. Each house, though sepa- 
rate like the individual in society, must, like 
him, contribute to the Whole in a harmonious 
spirit. Such is, doubtless, the deepest note 
struck here, and heard by every human soul 
present : the note of harmony between the par- 
ticular structure and the total Enclosure. Wher- 
ever we turn, whatever we look at specially, we 
hear, with rare and insignificant exceptions, the 
same happy concordant tones and overflowing 
melodies. Architecture has often been called 
frozen music, but here it seems to be melting, 
and almost moving to a tune, since we become 
aware of so many different strains as we glance 



THE HEABT OF THE FAIR. 121 

round the horizon, all of them helping to produce 
the one grand symphony called the Enclosure. 

What is this but another note of that harmony 
which we traced through the total Exposition, 
the harmony between the individual and the 
universal? We have already observed how each 
State has its own sepai*ate building, 3^et belongs 
to the Whole : the fact which gives the funda- 
mental distinction of the Fair, both in its inner 
meaning and outer construction. The Enclosure 
has the same key-note. 

Architecture has here the function of surround- 
ing a vast body of people, though it does not 
furnish a covering overhead, which is the free 
gift of Heaven. In the largest medieval cathe- 
dral the roof and dome were to overarch the 
whole community gathered inside under the 
special protection of the Church. But the Rail- 
road now brings so many people together with 
such rapidity from great distances that not one 
cathedral but several would be needed. 

The cathedral at the World's Fair is the En- 
closure which surrounds the people, and gives 
the sense of being within, yet has Heaven's blue 
dome as its own, hinting a harmonious relation 
with nature. The Renascence has this return to 
nature out of medieval religious asceticism; the 
architecture of the Renascence which is largely 
that of the World's Fair, has adopted this dome 
of nature as its central one and has surrounded 



122 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

the same with the lesser domes of the old 
Church. 

Thus each Enclosure has the feeling of an in- 
terior, yet combined with the architectural forms 
of an exterior; wherein we can see that the 
artistic work has been internalized. What was 
formerly outside is preserved yet is turned 
inside. Still this inside is not exclusive, 
Heaven is not shut off by any artificial cover, 
the sky is open to all, with its sunshine, its 
clouds, its stars also. This feeling of being in 
a house which is out of doors, is unique. 

Still it is not pretended that such an Enclosure 
is here given for the first time; it, too, goes far 
back in the ages. The court was known in antiq- 
uity, witness the houses at Pompeii, also the hypse- 
thral temple of the Greek was open to the sky. 
The Forum in old Rome, the Public Square in mod- 
ern cities, are Enclosures surrounded by edifices. 
But the architecture in such cases is mostly left 
to take care of itself, it has little or no unity of 
plan or of feeling. 

We shall accordingly proceed to consider the 
two Enclosures, scanning in some detail their 
special characteristics as well as their general 
relations. We shall try to grasp the friendly 
reader by the hand and conduct him, both of us 
taking glimpses of fronts, colonnades, sky-lines, 
in an extended walk through the grounds. Each 
building will be seen to have its own peculiar 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. 123 

facial expression, yet in agreement with the rest. 
Then we must endeavor to see how all these 
exteriors are themselves one, suggesting also an 
interior, which leaves upon the mind the impres- 
sion of an harmonious whole. 

Nor should we fail to expand thought and 
imagination by tracing analogies, historical, 
artistic, even literary. The two Enclosures may 
be said to lean toward the classic and the 
romantic respectively ; they suggest the Greek 
and the Christian tendencies in art ; in the one 
the sculpturesque dominates, in the other the 
picturesque; the one is more Sophocles, the 
other is more Shakespeare. Golden threads out 
of all time can be discerned running through the 
two Enclosures in every direction, crossing, inter- 
weaving, rising here, vanishing there, forming a 
marvelous texture, which charms the humblest 
eye and entices the most subtle, to explore the 
secret of its beauty. 

In order to connect the present study with what 
has gone before, we shall briefly repeat two or 
three points which have been previously set forth. 
The first is the division into State Buildings and 
General Buildings. The latter are, however, in 
reality but one structure, one grand Temple of 
Industry, and ought properly to be spoken of in 
the singular number, though there be a multitude 
of separate houses. Thus the unity of this por- 
tion of the Fair Buildings is emphasized, which 



124 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

is its cardinal fact. On the contrary, the State 
Buildings ought to be spoken of in the plural 
number; thus their individual element has the 
stress. Still further, we have already pointed 
out that the General Buildings surround three 
Courts, and hence fall into three portions, which 
we call the Upper Enclosure (Wooded Island), 
Middle Enclosure (Court of Honor), and Lower 
Enclosure, the latter being the background of the 
Fair and reservoir for its overflow. 

In the present study we shall elaborate more 
fully the details of the first two Enclosures, 
Middle and Upper, both of which, taken together 
in their completeness, may well be named the 
Heart of the Fair. 



I. 

The best way is for us to pass at once to the 
Middle Enclosure or Court of Honor, and seek to 
grasp its leading points. No trees, no island, 
no wild boscage, hardly any greenery, a little 
border of sod in two or three places ; there is a 
small body of water, but it is enclosed, walled 
in, put into regular lines. Thus we see that 
Nature in her untrained mood is not permitted to 
be present, wherein this Middle Enclosure is 
in marked contrast with the Upper one, as we 
shall hereafter note more particularly. 

Raising the eyes from earth to heaven, we 



THE HEABT OF THE FAIR. 125 

observe that there is but little attempt to reach 
upward iuto the Beyond ; the sky-line in general 
stays below, undulating somewhat, yet hovering 
around the rectilineal. To be sure, there are some 
towers and spires which push the line upwards, 
but it soon drops back to its satisfied level. 
Again we shall note a decided difference in this 
regard from the Upper Enclosure with its cloud- 
piercing, aspiring Domes on every side. 

The Middle Enclosure gives, accordingly, the 
idea of limitation, of a strict boundary ; it is 
essentially rectilineal and rectanguhir. Thus it 
has a certain geometric regularity, its general 
form is that of a parallelogram. Yet it is by no 
means rigid or crystallized in all its lines, it sweeps 
at certain points into curves and becomes sculp- 
turesque. But its grand fundamental character 
is to be architectural ; its walls are the walls of a 
building, and it suggests the indwelling spirit by 
construction and not by statuary. This regularity 
will also form a contrast with the irregular shape 
and lines of the Upper Enclosure. 

On account of this mathematic definiteness, 
the Middle Enclosure gives everywhere evidence 
of pre-calculation. It is not an unconscious prod- 
uct, breaking out of some man's brains with the 
elemental force of limit-defying genius, it is 
measured, mastered, ordered, being created 
according to law. Manifestly it was seen and 
built by mind before it was built of material 



126 WORLD' 8 FAIR STUDIES. 

staff, iron and wood ; it was reckoned in numbers, 
and made definite in the idea. Thus it is com- 
plete in its kind, nothing more is wanted. It 
satisfies the mind beholding ; above all, it is 
satisfied with itself, it rests content in its own 
beauty. 

Already we have said that limitation is the feel- 
ing uttered in this Middle Enclosure, yet the soul 
is happy in that limitation, and feels the same to 
be its own. Hence we have here the atmosphere 
of the Greek world, in which the Gods descended 
to earth and took on finite form and revealed 
themselves as serene and happy therein. So in 
this Middle Enclosure the spirit loves its limits, 
seeks not for the beyond, attainment is now 
attained. Every soul entering this Enclosure is 
filled with a common sentiment and says to itself , 
Here I am satisfied. Happy-making is the glance, 
surely a grand benediction of the Gods. 

Now this atmosphere or the thought thereof is 
essentially a part of the Great Fair. The spirit 
of man is to take hold of matter, of all the prod- 
ucts of the earth, and to transform them, and 
be happy therein. Industry is but a grand met- 
amorphosis of the physical world into the forms 
of the spirit. As the old Gods of Greece 
came down from Olympus and assumed visible 
appearance in marble which was wrought by the 
hands of the artist, so the same spirit is repro- 
duced ideally in this Middle Enclosure. Hence 



THE HEABT OF THE FAIR. 127 

these Greek architectural foiins flow naturally 
from the idea of the phice. 

For a more adequate study of the Middle 
Enclosure we may look at each of the four sides 
of the quadrilateral, Western, Eastern, South- 
ern, Northern. Each side is different from the 
rest, has its own character which fits into the total 
Enclosure and helps make the same an artistic 
whole. We may now follow them out in succes- 
sion, taking each side in order. 

1. Ou the Western side is the Terminal Build- 
insf, which is the entrance of the railroad to the 
Fair by way of the land. The great mass of people 
necessarily come this way. It is the place of bustle, 
of hurrying crowds, of trucks and trunks ; it has a 
roujrhness which belono^s to the railroad station. 
Hence it is appropriate that here the work should 
show a rough outside — rustica they call it — 
with jagged edges, uneven surfaces, indicating 
resistance to a jostling multitude. In such a 
place the column too must show and even use its 
elbows. 

Moreover the style is essentially Roman. 
Three large arches fill the center of the fa9ade, 
reminding the spectator of the so-called Basilica 
of Constantine at Rome. The arch here finds its 
true application and becomes very suggestive. 
For this arch always calls up Roman strength, 
the power of upholding a great superincumbent 
burden, while it leaves a large passage for those 



128 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES, 

beneath to walk along in security. The multitude 
rolling by under them may well look up at these 
overspanning arches and feel safe. The fine 
Corinthian columns at the side of the entrances are 
merely decorative, not necessary for support; 
still they show Roman might adorning itself with 
Greek beauty, and thus become characteristic o^ 
the entire Middle Enclosure, and harmonious 
with its spirit. 

The fagade of the Terminal Building is one of 
the best architectural plans on the ground. The 
triple-arched central passage with the two wings, 
which are again subdivided into three main por- 
tions, gives a completely organized surface, one 
which shows no excess — not too much detail on 
the one hand, no bare surface on the other. One 
of the dangers of architecture is that it runs 
to the picturesque and fantastic ; here the archi- 
tect has filled, but not overfilled his surface. 
The idea of the threefold colossal gateway it has, 
yet covered overhead for protection. The two 
wings added on each side complete the notion 
of an Enclosure. 

One drawback we may note. The Building is 
too wide for its height, thus it violates the fine 
sense of classic proportion. The result is, the 
structure as a whole seems flat, squatty ; it has not 
enough upwardness for the modern, not even for 
the ancient spirit. The architect seems to have 
been aware of this fact, and so he put on top of 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. 129 

his building a large number of heaven-pointing 
obelisks, which look like so many tombstones. 
The suggestion is not pleasant, but one may 
think it appropriate. A grave-yard is placed on 
the roof of the station to symbolize the fatality 
of railroad traveling during the Fair; thereby 
many indeed were sent to heaven, which is here 
significantly pointed at. A somewhat ghastly 
symbol — but let it pass. 

Nor must we forget to note the bandaged col- 
umns in rustica which are here introduced with 
effect. The idea of putting such a rough protec- 
tion around a column came originally from mili- 
tary architecture. A column might be struck by 
a cannon ball ; why should it not be protected by 
a kind of wrappage in stone? But in this place 
we think not of war but of trunks and basforaofe 
and breakage ; let every wall and column present 
a rough resisting surface to such treatment, thus 
protecting itself. These bandaged columns are so 
often senselessly introduced that it is pleasant to 
see them in their true place for once. 

Very ])roper is it that the visitor should first 
pass into the Middle Enclosure through the 
Terminal, as this ushers him into the presence 
of the Greek world, which, in order of time and 
development, is before the modern epoch and art 
which belong to the Upper Enclosure. He pro- 
ceeds to tlie Upper Enclosure somewhat in the 
order of historv, he goes forward to his own 

9 



130 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

time on the path of his race. Laden with the art 
and architecture of the Middle Enclosure, he can 
more easily grasp the art and architecture of the 
Upper Enclosure. But we are not yet ready to 
pass thither ; we wish to inspect the other build- 
ings of this Middle Enclosure (Court of Honor), 
and listen to what they say to us. 

2. It is best, on the whole, to pass next to the 
Eastern side, where is the so-called peristyle, or 
large colonnade of Corinthian columns. The 
first fact to be considered in reference to this 
structure is that it connects, its purpose is to 
unite, without it there would be a great breach 
in the Middle Enclosure, and also in the total 
Industrial Temple. Nothing in all these Build- 
ings suggests unity of plan and structure so 
strongly as this colonnade, joining with its two 
wings the two sides of the Middle Enclosure. 

The next fact is that this colonnade is Greek, 
with column and entablature and sculpturesque 
forms above on the sky-line. It lies toward the 
East, whence culture has come with the course of 
the sun; it encloses with its columnar rows yet 
gives a peep through into the Beyond, into the 
illimitable waves or into the heavens above. 
Here is the element of water, hardly employed 
at this point for an entrance, though steamboats 
are landing in the distance. The peristyle is not 
useful, but simply beautiful, it serves for an 
idea, it has no purpose but an ideal one. The 



THE HEART OF THE FAIB. 131 

Terminal Building opposite exists for utility, it 
is Roman, practical. But this colonnade is 
Greek, ideal, made for the artistic unity of the 
Enclosure. Behold the crowds pouring through 
the gate of the West and looking toward the 
beauty of Hellas in the East ; on both sides the 
architecture is truly significant of the two great 
classic peoples, Roman and Hellenic, and hints 
their respective contributions to the ages. 

If you look at the sky-line of this colonnade, 
you behold sculpturesque shapes on high in vari- 
ous attitudes. They seem to have descended 
from the skies and to have lit there ; indeed 
they seem to have flown down as spirits from 
above and assumed these material forms for our 
vision. Perchance they are Gods taking on an 
appearance for the senses, Greek deities mani- 
festing themselves once more to mortals. At 
least, the feeling is that out of spirit they have 
descended into flesh and are perched yonder; 
the descent, not the ascent, is the emphatic 
thing. Very marked will be the contrast with 
the Upper Enclosure, when the ascent, the rise, 
will have the stress, and will hint of a new 
order. 

The colonnade has its perpendicular element in 
the column, the support; then its horizontal ele- 
ment appears in the entablature, the supported ; 
its rise to the curved organic shape is witnessed 
in the statuary above, for which the whole peri- 



132 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

style stands as a kind of pedestal, showing a 
new grand epiphany of the Gods, as they alight 
from Olympus on the earth. Such is the dis- 
tant suggestion ; by the inscription underneath 
we find these new Gods to be the States of the 
American Union. Let not this fact disturb us, 
nor need we inspect these shapes too closely ; at 
a distance they give the finest classic scene at 
the Fair, a view never to be forgotten, a vision 
of the Beautiful not soon to be seen again. 

When we look down from the colonnade to 
the water in the Middle Enclosure, we find it 
changing to plastic shapes in the McMonnies 
Fountain. Water is the formable; it naturally 
runs into forms and half-forms ; it seems often 
turning to something organic and then it drops 
back again to its chaotic self. The Tritons, 
Mermaids, Neptunian cohorts, the multitudinous 
demi-shapes of the sea have been fixed by Greek 
imagination into sculpture; accordingly we be- 
hold water breaking into the lower shapes of the 
white Fountain and struggling to get itself 
formed. We all feel a subtle connection between 
the Fountain, the Colonnade and the whole 
Middle Enclosure. Far less significant to us are 
the allegorical figures of this group. Water the 
formable passing into sculpture the formed, 
with a continuous interplay between both sides 
is the work here, and the subtle suggestion. 

The Quadriga of the Peristyle faces the Boat 



THE HEABT OF THE FAIB. 133 

of tho Fountain ; one is ii response to the other, 
they are indeed counterparts ; the boat is for 
water and the chariot is for land. Yet the two 
are attuned in unison, we feel that both are 
coming together and ultimately belong together; 
signifying at bottom the same thing: spirit's 
mastery over sea and earth. Light, too, solar, 
lunar, electric, introduces a varied play of these 
forms with new effects, by day and by night ; 
they are never quite the same forenoons and 
afternoons ; under a cloudy sky or on a rainy day 
their mood changes. Undoubtedly the spectator 
changes also. 

3. We may next glance at the Southern side of 
the Middle Enclosure, which has its own character, 
and which is made up of three structures, 
Machiner}'^ Hall, tho Southern Colonnade, and 
the Aojricultural Buildins^. Taken too^ether these 
have a decided classic tendency, their facades 
show almost a continuous row of columns. The 
idea of them is to enclose, and to turn inward to 
the beautiful Court; very carefully does the line 
of buildings keep out what lies behind them. The 
Lower or Third Enclosure, which is the backyard 
of the Fair, is firmly excluded. 

Machinery Hall is marked emphatically by its 
long columnar portico, which seems a delightful 
promenade. Along the sky-line its classicism 
relaxes and breaks into a number of towers and 
small domes. Its architecture has but little 



134 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

reference to the contents, that is determined by 
the general character of the Middle Enclosure. 
For this Court is the true interior, whose spirit 
must call forth the appropriate architectural 
forms ; a total structure is this Middle Enclosure 
whose parts must be made harmonious in their 
diversity. We note a tendency to break upward 
out of the classical, which, however, dominates 
the Building in its lower portions. The roof is 
in a kind of struggle against the body of the 
structure, which thus sends forth a slight echo 
of the dualism between Classic and Romantic. 

The Southern Colonnade is smaller than the 
Eastern (the peristyle so-called), yet has the 
same general purpose. Its design is to connect 
Machinery Hall with the Agriculture Building, 
and thus to suggest the unity of the Middle En- 
closure. Yet through the unusual elevation of 
its base, it gives also the idea of exclusion, it 
will shut out what is behind it except the sky. 
Surely an ideal purpose lies in it too, hardly is 
it useful for anything in the way of housing 
exhibits. From the bridge over the South 
Basin, one looks at the Eastern and Southern 
colonnades, and feels them connecting the sepa- 
rate members of the Exposition in a Greek 
harmony. Yes, from that bridge one may 
obtain, on the whole, the finest architectural view 
that has ever been beheld on our planet. It is 
easy to exaggerate, and Chicago is somewhat 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. 135 

prone to boast ; still let anybody recall the 
greatest scenes of Classic or Oriental splendor 
and draw the comparison. 

The Agriculture Building is the third structure 
on the Southern side and keeps up the classic 
impression, though in a different way. It has 
also its two fa9ades, one fronting the Court and 
the other fronting the Basin ; thus it is quite 
symmetrical with Machinery Hall. Very beau- 
tiful is this mutual looking at each other of the 
two grand palaces over the intervening body of 
water. Then the linking together by the 
Southern Colonnade hints the connecting bond 
between the two buildings, namely the Greek 
forms of architecture — that is indeed the subtle 
element which joins the whole Enclosure into one 
Temple. Note that the line of columns is 
repeated in front of the Agriculture Building, 
yet broken up by square pillars into groups. On 
the sky-line is much statuary pertaining to 
Agriculture, whereby the classic impression is 
heightened. This Building does not shoot up 
into spires like Machinery Hall, though it has 
a dome in the center. The two thus are in a 
contrast above and below. 

This South side of the Middle Enclosure is its 
most elaborate part, and must be deemed highly 
successful. The Eastern and Western sides are 
much simpler, and hence have the beauty of sim- 
plicity, in Roman and in Hellenic style. But 



136 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

the Southern side, owing to its length, presented 
a far harder problem. How shall this long sur- 
face be filled without monotony, yet without too 
much variation? Tediousness on the one hand 
confusion on the other, were the dangers. On 
the earth-line and on the sky-line must the skill 
of the architect be shown, the result is an ex- 
ceedingly noble view above and below, which one 
can contemplate often and long, and from many 
points of view, for its wealth of architectural 
forms seems inexhaustible. 

Nor must we forget to call attention to the out- 
look from the bridge which here crosses the 
South Basin. On the whole it embraces more of 
the greatness of the Fair than any other point. 
We can behold the two Colonnades South and 
East, and thus receive the idea of the connection 
of the whole, of the one Temple; indeed the 
controlling thought is suggested, that of Greek 
architecture with column and entablature. This 
is the underlying structural principle which domi- 
nates the whole Enclosure. Then we catch a 
glimpse of the entire Quadrilateral with all its 
Buildings seen from the bridge and feel their 
unity amid their great variety. Finally we throw 
a glance up the lagoon into the Upper Enclosure 
and see the foliage on the island, with the Illinois 
Building and its Dome in the distance. Truly a 
peep beyond the Classic World of the Middle 
Enclosure, into the future, as it were, into a new 



THE HEART OF THE FAIB. 137 

art. Thither we are surely going in time, and 
the sucfofestion thereof lies also in the buildino^s 
which we have just been considering. 

One can never look at the total sweep of this 
South Side of the Middle Enclosure without the 
feeiinor of beinor lost in the multitude and maojni- 
tude of its architectural ideas. Herein it tran- 
scends classic moderation ; in its mighty profu- 
sion it suggests something beyond the Greek 
prototype after which it is mainly formed. 

4. We shall now pass over to the North side, 
which is made up of the three Buildings — Min- 
ing, Electricity, and Liberal Arts — each of 
which has a front toward the Middle Enclosure. 
Yet no long side-front it is, but rather the rear; 
we observe that these three buildings really 
abut upon the Middle Enclosure, rather than 
face it ; they are turned in the other direction, 
they look toward the Upper Enclosure. In other 
words, we are directed now from the Middle to 
the Upper Enclosure. 

The suggestion of the architecture here is that 
of a transition. There are no long lines of col- 
umns as in the buildings of the South side ; 
there is a succession of square pillars forming 
arcades, the strong classicism of the South side 
diminishes. To be sur.e, the entrances are 
marked, and the corners of these structures have 
special pavilion-like shapes ; due respect is paid 
to the Middle Enclosure ; but the spirit is to de- 



138 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES, ' 

clare that this side points and leads to the Upper 
Enclosure. The simple Renascence prevails with 
glances back to classic ideas. Some towers we 
see on the Electricity Building, which distin- 
guishes it from the Mining Building, suggesting 
lightning-rods which pierce the sky. These tow- 
ers, too, connect and contrast it with Machinery 
Hall on the opposite side of the Enclosure. 

One feels, therefore, that this North side does 
not exclude nor enclose with the vigor of the 
South side; it has no colonnade over its lagoons 
for the purpose of connecting its Buildings, it is 
more of an interior or part of a totality. So the 
architects would have us at last couple together 
the Middle and Upper Enclosures into a unity, 
or into one vast Temple. The Mining and the 
Electricity Buildings, therefore, do not separate 
very strongly, they hint rather a connection. 

Open passages by land and by water invite 
the visitor to look or to walk from one to the 
other ; no such easy passages are found on the 
South side. 

Thus we have taken a glance at the four sides 
of the Middle Enclosure. We should now ob- 
serve that the space between is broken and 
diversified in many ways. Water along with gon- 
dolas, boats, launches, fountains, borders, gives 
an important note of movement and color. The 
peculiar Neptunian columns, eight of them, do 
not interrupt the view ; the two temples of Vesta 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. 139 

are neat in themselves and have an historic value, 
beino: the old Roman source of all these domes. 
The statuary, mainly of animals, furnishes a kind 
of contrast and relief, though really out of place 
in this Enclosure; they belong to the Upper En- 
closure properly. With the Goddess of Liberty 
standing here, colossal, gilded, we cannot get 
acquainted somehow, often have we sought to 
know her and tarried near with eager glances; 
but we still remain outside of her train of ad- 
mirers. 

Doubtless all these architectural forms are old, 
taken by themselves. We are aware that these 
buildings belong to the general type of the 
Renascence ; indeed the arch, the whidow, the 
cornice, the mouldings can be traced back to old 
Rome. Still the use of them is original, the com- 
bination is the novelty. Any one of these parts 
or structural elements is imitated, but the totality 
of them is original. Architecture is an evolution, 
and does not reject what has gone before, but 
unfolds out of the same while taking it along. 
So the Middle Enclosure as a whole is the won- 
derful new Building, never seen before; it will 
modify entire streets, squares and parks ; it will 
suggest not one good edifice, but the unity of 
many good edifices. It is truly the new Greek 
Temple with its beautiful Enclosure, not copied 
after the old one, but derived therefrom. 

We have not yet spoken of the Administration 



140 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

Building in connection with the Middle Enclosure, 
though its Dome has been already noticed. In 
external appearance it is a striking happy con- 
ception; the threefold structure with Dome on 
top, with Ionic temple in the middle, with mod- 
ern type of a Renascence building below, give a 
strong and true architectural impression. The 
three structures piled up one on the other, rep- 
resent three great phases of architecture happily 
joined together. 

Yet one will experience some disappointments 
in this edifice. We enter it, and find nothing in 
it but vacancy. We look up and see emptiness 
to the very apex. Only some decoration on the 
walls; no purpose, no contents visible. Perhaps 
the small silver model of the Treasury Building 
which stands in the center may be deemed enough 
by some people; but most of us will not accept 
an idol of Mammon as sufficient for a God of 
such a Temple. Manifestly one of the first laws 
of Architecture is herein violated : the outer is not 
made to express the inner. Thus the most pre- 
tentious building at the Fair is reduced to a piece 
of empty bombast. 

There are four pavilions attached to four sides 
of the octagonal building. And just here again 
we feel a discord : these pavilions are not 
organic, they are simply glued on, and might be 
taken away, or slashed off without injuring the 
unity of the work. The Dome really descends to 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. 141 

the ground, and the pavilions or wings are out- 
side of it. These contain the offices of Adminis- 
tration while the real edifice contains nothing. 
Very different is the organic relation of the 
Dome to the lower structure in the Government 
Building or even in the Illinois Building, what- 
ever we may otherwise think of these structures. 

Nor can we see why the architect did not flute 
his Ionic columns. The result is the Colonnade 
above has an appearance of columnar dropsy, 
swollen unhandsomely below near the base of 
each column. Still the conception of the Domes 
resting upon this quadrilateral colonnade is of 
the ])est. 

One word about the inscriptions upon the build- 
ing. Could anything be tamer? Was it not 
possible to put some point, or even some poetry 
into these sentences? Alas! the Fair with all 
its grandeur has produced no poet, no master of 
artistic form in words. Here we seem to come 
upon the American limitation. We have to 
recollect that the war has produced no worthy 
poem, no worthy hi.storian of itself as yet. And 
the literary output pertaining to the Fair makes 
us think that the American literary defect lies 
deep, is indeed organic. Listen: ** Columbus was 
born at Genoa in 1446, went to sea at the age 
of 14, and entered the service of Spain January 
20, 1486." Soul-depressing is it to read such an 
inscription in such place with such an opportunity ; 



142 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

but we seem to have nobody able to «tir the heart 
and imagination with a half dozen simple words 
like Aux grands Jiommesla pairie reconnaissante^ 
or with four words like 8i monumentum quaeris^ 
circu7nspice. Fourtimes, over each entrance, are 
these awful platitudes held up before millions 
of gazers. Think of this : " Columbus received 
from Ferdinand and Isabella, sovereigns of Spain, 
a commission as admiral of an exploring fleet 
April 30th, 1492." Surely a shiver-producing 
utterance amid these surroundings. 

But let us look away from these little flaws 
and appreciate the glories before us. Let the 
critical mood be suppressed just here, lest the 
reader may retaliate upon the author of the 
present book, saying: ** You, the fault-linder, 
come under your own ban ; you, writing your 
book upon the Fair, furnish the best illustration 
of the thing which you have condemned." 



II. 

The Upper. Enclosure breaks away from the 
regularity which we have just witnessed in the 
Middle Enclosure, and stirs at the first glance a 
new order of emotions and thoughts. Nature is 
now permitted to appear in her native costume, 
her wild look is even encourao^ed amono' the 
latest works of civilization. The body of water 
in the Upper Enclosure is not confined in a 



THE HEABT OF THE FAIR. 143 

walled basin with precise bounds put upon it, 
but its channel curves and wanders about, now 
narrow and now wide, now straight and now 
crooked, with the inborn freedom of an untamed 
river. The edges of the stream are left as they 
grew, in a careless savage condition ; no trim- 
ming, no hand of cultivation is suffered to inter- 
fere with nature, who here shows her little 
caprices in a border of weeds, swamp-grass, and 
low shrubs. 

As we look up from this rude margin of the 
water to the Domes reaching heavenward, we 
are aware of the full contrast between nature 
and civilization, both of which in their extremes 
are suggested in the present Enclosure. The 
total sweep from the lowest at our feet to the 
highest above us is included in a glance, neither 
side being disdained, for both belong to our 
spirit's heritage. 

But the chief physical feature of the Upper 
Enclosure is the island, which now enters the 
landscape with its special significance. It grows 
trees and shrubbery, hence it contributes nature's 
green to the view and always gives a refreshing 
hint of the forest. It has also a nook of seclu- 
sion, the water cuts it off from the main high- 
ways, wherefore it has to be reached by bridges. 
A shady sylvan spot in the midst of all this bustle 
and activity, it wafts over to us a breath of rural 
quietude and repose, as we go tramping down 



344 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

the avenues and throuojh the buildiDors of the 
Fair, manv thousands of us, rushino: along and 
jostling one another. This mass of greenery 
obstructs the view of the opposite side, whence 
however, we catch glimpses of the upper part of 
the grand structures, specially the sky-line pierced 
by various architectural forms rising over the 
tree-tops and making a lofty row against the blue 
canopy above and beyond. It is a characterisic 
of this Upper Enclosure that all of it cannot be 
seen at once by the spectator below ; it does not 
lie open before him like the Middle Enclosure; 
it is partly hidden always, and can only be known 
by beholding it from many points of view. 

We pass over to the island and find that it has 
a cultivated garden in the heart of it, with winding 
paths and fountains and statuary and houses ; in 
the night it is lighted with many-colored lamps 
and Chinese lanterns suspended from the bushes. 
Yet that ferocious border of reeds and mud and 
morass environs it, and suggests whence it came. 
All these grounds, indeed, sprang from a swampy 
worthless moor ; why should there not be left a 
small reminder of the origin and first appear- 
ance? Thus we catch the grand sweep of the 
transformation here, which is verily a soul- 
stretcher. Other beginnings we note on this 
island : the hunter's cabin, the bark hut from 
New South Wales, suggesting the abodes of the 
pioneer in conflict with savagery. The little 



THE IIEAET OF THE FAIR. 1*45 

Japanese temple, delicate, light, with its two 
wings almost ready to fly, belongs to the gar- 
den ; with its brilliant decorations we may for 
tiie nonce deem it a humming-bird among these 
flowers. 

But we cannot long remain in this floral dream- 
life of the enchanted island, though it be restful 
to us and an important phase of the total artistic 
representation at the Fair. We move again to 
the pulsing avenues and seek to grasp this Upper 
Enclosure in its completeness. As already stated, 
the whole cannot be seen from any point ; there 
is an element of the unseen in it, which must 
always be supplied ; there is the limit, the En- 
closure, but with the same comes also the sug- 
o'estion that it must be transcended. As the 
form of this Enclosure is essentially a quadrilat- 
eral, we shall consider the four sides in order. 

1. We are walking along the west side of the 
laoroon'and are lookino^ across the Wooded Island 
over the orreen leaves at three Buildinors which 
show themselves in a broken line against the sky. 
The flrst of these structures on the South is the 
well-known Liberal Arts Building, not only the 
largest edifice on these grounds, but said to be the 
largest in the world. It abuts upon the Middle 
Enclosure to which it shows one of its broad 
fronts, then it overlaps the Upper Enclosure to 
which it reveals its enormous leno^th, forming a 
vast bridge from one inclosure to the other. 

10 



146 WOBLD\S FAIR STUDIES. 

Indeed this building, shaped like a parallelogram, 
is the Middle Enclosure roofed over ; the classic 
temple, great though it be, is withdrawn from 
the open sky and put under cover by our modern 
life, being converted into the hous^ of utility. 
Nature is not admitted directly, but is trans- 
formed, is given a new body and a new purpose 
by the hand of man. The total edifice suggests 
Manufacture in its most colossal appearance. 

The sweep of the roof is the most imposing 
thing about the external structure, seen acrOoS 
the Wooded Island. It seems some mountain 
range, dominating and belittling all things about 
it by its size. Its architecture is simple ; each 
side and front are divided into two equal halves 
by a massive arched entrance, thus furnishing a 
needed point of rest for the eye as well as a basis 
of measurement. Each of the four corners has 
a grand pavilion marking the angle, and giving 
emphasis to changes of direction in its sides. 
Its architectural forms speak of the Eenascence, 
that wonderful new birth of secular life, whose 
products it holds. Its construction and that of 
the Ferris Wheel are the chief mechanical tri- 
umphs at the Fair. 

Utility is the word spoken here, to which a 
slight decorative element may be added. What 
does the Bi*ildino^ house? Can we desio^nate it 
by a general name? Nature transformed by man 
into thousands of shapes and employed to sub- 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. 147 

serve his purposes and to satisfy his wants : 

natf.re is manufactured, made over by the human 

hand originally, thus becoming useful, an end 

unto something outside of itself. But the whole 

grand transformation taken toojether has a mean- 
to o 

ing beyond mere utility, it signifies freedom, it 
shows man liberating himself from the dominion 
of nature, and building with his own hands a new 
world in which to live. This is the great social 
fact of our age; political freedom we have, to a 
reasonable degree; social freedom, which is lib- 
eration through a social order from fate of 
nature, is deeper and greater ; let it have, there- 
fore, the largest Building of all — the biggest 
place for the biggest thing. 

Three characteristic qualities we feel to be in 
this edifice: (1) its magnitude corresponding to 
the importance of work here exhibited; (2) 
simplicity, showing a proper moderation in its 
ornament, as is becoming in the house of utility; 
(3) uniformity, indicating a repetition of the 
fundamental form, for instance, the vast iron 
arches inside, and the long rcrws of windows 
outside. In this repetition lies the idea of 
mechanical production which is exhibited in the 
Building. Prose it is, yet not prosy by any 
means. Then behold that wonderful roof sup- 
ported on iron trusses, the triumph of mechan- 
ism in protecting itself and its products from 
external nature. 



148 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

The eye has often passed to the next great 
structure on the North, the United States Gov- 
ernment Building. How different, yet how 
expressive ! Its ground-form approaches the 
square (350 ft. by 420 ft. ) ; it seems a little flat, 
and disconnected, but suddenly at the middle it 
concentrates and mounts upward in a lofty Dome 
whose meaning in relation to the other Domes we 
have considered in a previous study. Surely the 
lower portion would go to pieces were it not for 
that Dome which both aspires and commands. 
Can we not see separation and union, the two 
counter tendencies of our government, in this 
edifice, or freedom and authority, or local 
autonomy combined with a central hegemony? 
Three portions, all parts of one process, we can 
note in the Building: (1) The lowest part, with 
distinct corners and projections, with four small 
domes separated from the large one, with no 
uniting roof visible; this part is spread out on 
the ground, squared in shape. (2) The rectangu- 
lar form passes into the circular drum of the 
Dome, uniting and concentrating what is below, 
upholding and foreshadowing what is above. 
(3) Herewith we reach the curvature of the 
Dome sweeping upwards to its keystone, which, 
connecting and binding, is still further empha- 
sized and made apparent by a small dome which 
images its greater self. Then on top of the 
whole floats the American Flaoj. In this manner 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. 149 

we may read the national thought buiit into the 
Nation's Building. 

But what is the connection between it and the 
preceding Liberal Arts Building? In shape we 
mark the passage from the long and prolonged 
to the square and concentrated, from repetition 
to unity, from a continuous moving along the 
earth to a soaring above the earth. The one is 
a product of man's will transforming the physical 
world ; the other is a securing of that will to the 
one who puts it forth. The object of govern- 
ment is not to manufacture but to secure the 
man who manufactures, to will the man's will 
producing. Thus it overhangs this vast work- 
house, which is larger, but not so lofty nor so 
central. An Anglo-Saxon spirit rules in this 
Government House, it is the offshoot of the 
English colonization of America. 

Next we pass to the Fisheries Building, a 
quaint but fascinating structure, which offers its 
problems to the beholder with no little intensity. 
^Yhat is its meaning and what is its link of con- 
nection with the other edifices? In contrast with 
the two previous Buildings, it seems to drop 
down into itself, being less in height and size, 
yet it has a character and a charm of its own. 
Domes and towers it possesses, still it cannot be 
called aspiring, but rather self-suppressing ; its 
unity is not concentrated, but is loosened by 
annexes which are connected with the main 



150 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

building by curved arcades. Everybody's atten- 
tion is caught by the deep, small windows. 
What do they signify here? An introverted look 
they have, not free and open to the outside 
world, like yonder Government Building for 
instance; the inmates of such an house might 
peep out of these windows, but they are not to 
be seen peeping out. A monastic tinge we ob- 
serve in the structure ; theie is in it a turning 
away from nature as something forbidden, along 
with a suppression of the soul ; mark how these 
domes flatten down the free upward curve of the 
other domes around it into a straight line, and 
refuse to mount cloudward. Are they not 
crushed to their present shape in a manner? 
Spanish is the edifice taken from the ecclesias- 
tical architecture of the Middle Ages with many 
Moorish hints; it must represent or point to 
Spanish America, whose State Buildings lie in 
this part of the grounds. 

Now we begin to trace the connection of this 
structure with the others belonging to the Upper 
Enclosure. Spain and England were the two 
European countries which colonized the Western 
Continent ; here is a suggestion of the fiict in 
architecture. Spain with the Moor, with the 
cloister, with the inquisition in her spirit ; in- 
troversion, brooding, suppression; such a char- 
acter is stamped upon this construction. Yet 
note the breaking loose in these two wings, which 



THE HEART OF THE FAIR. . 151 

are like the mother house, yet separate: wherein 
also lies an historical suo^orestion. The whole 
has less unity than the United States Building, 
less concentration ; who cannot find traces of 
the Spanish American Republics in this Build- 
ing, probably not intended by the architect? 
Not much relation has this edifice to fish, except 
in its ornaments, which are tacked on capriciously 
to the columns. Still it is unique in conception, 
a flight of imagination, placed here in the neigh- 
borhood of Brazil and the South American State 
Buildings, and in contrast with the United States 
Building. 

Let us glance once more at that sky-line to 
the east of the Upper Enclosure; deep unspeak- 
able things one feels at the first glance, possibly 
at the last. We behold in wonder the vast 
pyramidal sweep, with its central culmination; 
we read the letters from left to right, three of 
them, making one great continental utterance: 
( 1 ) Spanish discovery and colonization coupled 
with romance and imagination, yet with suppres- 
sion of the spirit in Church and State, till it 
breaks forth wildly in revolution; (2) Anglo- 
Saxon discovery and colonization coupled with 
freedom yet with unity, but not without strug- 
gle deep and strong; (3) Industry overmaking 
the physical world for man's new abode, colossal 
but with vast repetition, a suggestion of the new 
social order. Some such intimations we feel 



152 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

from afar, viewing yonder row of architectonic 
shapes over the tree-tops against the clouds. 

2. It is now best to look at the opposite side, 
which is the counterpart of the Eastern side just 
witnessed; that is, we must change position and 
glance westward. Accordingly we shall view 
the Western side of the Upper Enclosure across 
the Wooded Island, which almost hides it when 
seen from below. Here we note our first sug- 
gestion : the West still hides the works of 
man with trees, being not yet emerged as fully 
as the East from the forest. The sky-line is low, 
compared with the Eastern, the architecture has 
not yet risen so very far above the earth. 
Important is it to put this Wooded Island into 
our view of the Upper Enclosure ; to catch the 
lines of construction through the foliage, or just 
above it, adds much to the significance of this 
Western side, especially when seen from the 
East. Three main buildings we shall take 
note of, quite in symmetry with the opposite side, 
though there be some lesser buildings in between 
the larger ones. 

The first on the North is the Woman's Build- 
ing, with the ordinary Renascence features. 
The most striking architectural characteristic of 
it is the row of caryatids placed high above on 
the sky-line. Why just that, I wonder? Why 
should woman place such a burden on woman 
and so exalt the matter? The ancient caryatid 



THE HEABT OF THE FAIR. 153 

was really a pillar, a supporter of the archi- 
trave standing below the same; but now she is 
placed on top of the house, with the burden still, 
but it is hardly a necessary burden. One is in- 
clined to cry up at it: Throw down that heavy 
beam from your head, O woman, and stand forth 
free, as a Goddess of Liberty in the New World. 

But the most important fact connected with 
this Building is not architectural, though playing 
deeply into its significance for the beholder. It was 
built by a woman for women. Thus the female 
world has its distinctive home in this Exposition; 
sex has asserted its right to a separate recogni- 
tion, thouojh elsewhere woman's work is merored 
with man's. This new wonderful phase of 
woman belongs to the West with all its possibili- 
ties. Moreover we must note that the building 
manifests a phase of that individuality which in 
many ways has shown itself at the present Fair ; 
here the distinction of sex has asserted itself. 
Hence the structure has its place at the Northern 
end of the grounds, near to the separate build- 
ings of the States and Nations, which locality 
has been given over to the individual side of 
the Exposition. 

The next important Building is the horticult- 
ural, which almost sinks out of sight behind the 
trees, hugging the earth from whose bosom the 
vegetable world immediately springs, with roots 
in the soil. The Dome is one of the largest at 



164 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

the Fair ; though low, it is very broad at the 
base ; it seems a huge bud surrounded by four 
little buds. Such a Dome we canuot call aspir- 
ing; it stands in strong contrast with the coun- 
terpart opposite, the Dome of the United States 
Building. Thus the Horticultural Building hardly 
rises above the island with trees and garden ; 
why should it, being of the same, the very house 
thereof? That this floral life lies close to the 
Woman's Building has also its fitness, for is 
there not more affinity between woman and the 
flower than between man and the flower? The 
low structure spreading out over the earth has its 
concentration in the Dome, and suggests the top 
of the tree overlooking the vegetable kingdom 
in a kind of regal supremacy. 

Next we observe the Transportation Building 
which may be called the Sphinx of all these 
structures, inasmuch as it off'ers more problems 
and makes us ask more questions than we ask 
about anything else. Few persons come before 
it who do not feel at first surprised, perchance 
shocked, and are compelled to make a new 
synthesis of some kind to become reconciled to 
it. Architecturally it is in a general harmony 
with the rest of the Buildings, being of the 
Renascence type; its ground-plan, its shape, 
its windows are of the same class as the Mining 
Building which stands just across the street from 
it. Still it has a number of disguises which turn 



THE HEABT OF THE FAIR, 155 

the mind away from the mere scheme of its con- 
struction ; it has beyond its classical forms dashes 
and splashes into the fantastic and picturesque. 
Three things chiefly insist upon some answer, 
after careful and repeated surveys of the Build- 
ing from various points of view. (1) Color — 
why such a display of it just here? First of all, 
color gives relief from the overwhelming white 
which so dominates the edifices of the Fair. 
White suggests the pure, the passionless, the 
colorless law ; but law is not all of the human 
being, he has red blood, heart, emotions, 
nay caprices. So this play of colors calls 
up a corresponding inner play of feeling, 
these polychromatic sports release us from 
the stern grip of legality. At least thirty 
shades of color are said to be employed, all dis- 
tinguishable by a sensitive eye. Yet it is not 
chaotic, not delirious, but an ordered festivity of 
tints; note the patterns recurring regularly and 
the mathematic repetitions of these shapes ; 
underneath caprices we can see the law at last. 
Thus this Building in contrast to the others 
around it makes its appeal to the subjective 
nature of man, and gives us a higher totality. 
(2) The next problem touches the grand display 
at the entrance, the so-called Golden Gate. We 
behold a lavish use of color, forms, golden and 
silvern, with intricate patterns of leaves and other 
vegetable shapes ; truly an appearance of Oriental 



156 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

magnificeDce. But why such a sudden outpour 
of splendors at this point? Very siornificant is 
the suggestion. The gate to the colossal fortunes 
of this country, those of the Goulds and the Van- 
derbilts, not to speak of lesser examples, has been 
through Transportation by railway and steam- 
boat. Commerce and manufactures have also 
been profitable, but have not rivaled Transporta- 
tion. Hence this Gate is truly typical and be- 
longs just to this Building. Moreover the Trans- 
portation monarchs, railroad kings they are called 
sometimes, have an Oriental taste for ornament and 
external splendor in their houses, cars, hotels ; 
they show their wealth by lavish outlay, they 
to a degree have revived the gorgeous display of 
the sovereigns of the East. We hold, accordingly, 
that the Oriental st34e of this Golden Gate is 
a true picture set up in front of the present 
structure, with its profusion, its multiplication of 
ornament on ornament, showing the luxuriousness 
of Arabic or Hindoo fancy. (3) But those 
winged figures between the spandrils — what can 
we make of them? They have perhaps received 
more censure than any other single design at the 
Fair. Beautiful they can hardly be called, stiff, 
without perspective, rudely primitive, going back 
to old Assyria seemingly. The universal objec- 
tion is that they are mechanical ; they have no 
life, each is like the other, face is without ex- 
pression ; to these depressing qualities wings are 



THE IIEAIiT OF THE FAIB. 157 

added, they are made angels. Yes, such they are, 
and after a little sympathetic reflection we see 
that such they ought to be. A mechanical figure 
with wings, that means flying mechanism — what 
else is Transportation with its locomotive speeding 
over the land? The figure would not represent 
those stationary engines in Machinery Hall, 
which cannot fly; it belongs just here. As a 
human shape it is not perfect, being too mechan- 
ical ; it is not a fresco by Raphael, which would 
be in this place meaningless. As an angel it is not 
a success, judged by the standard furnished by 
Fra Angel ico ; still we may say that it suggests 
the heavy world of matter taking the pinions of 
thought and flying, even by way of mechanics. 
In this manner criticism can win a positive side 
from these shapes, and rescue them from univer- 
sal damnation, beholding their celestial and not 
their diabolic element. 

The building has, therefore, imagination, it has 
an original stroke, in it, which sets the mind 
a-going ; it streams back through Romanesque and 
Byzantine hints in the windows and capitals and 
ornaments and color, to the Orient and connects 
with the Plaisance, with the Moorish Building 
and the Street in Cairo. A fantasia in color and 
form it is on the outside, yet is fundamentally 
patterned after the Renascence type. Transport- 
ation has developed in the Occident, and yet 
carries us to the Orient ; it belongs on this West- 



158 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

ern side of the Upper Enclosure ; yet breaks into 
color, which has its analogy to movement, 
especially to the self-movement of the locomo- 
tive. Law is found under this Building's fantastic 
outbursts ; it is not a drunken delirium of color. 

3. As often as we have looked to the South, 
we have noticed two Buildino^s standino^ alono^- 
side of each other, erected in a certain relation to 
each other, both fronting the Upper Enclosure. 
They give the impression of a pair, male and 
female, man and wife, having a certain yoked 
domestic appearance. 

The first is the Mining Building, on the left 
hand — massive, strong, but heavj^-featured. 
Large windows with wide projecting walls be- 
tween, with broad plain entrances; low domes 
on each corner, yet without any central dome; it 
is muscular, cyclopean, suggesting the big-boned 
miner delving in the bowels of the earth. Yet it 
has grace, has simplicity, even a certain classic 
elegance, being also of the Renascence. 

The second Building is of the same size (350 
by 700 ft.) but is given much finer features, 
more delicate details. At once we notice the 
smaller windows, the pilasters between with a 
Corinthian finish, the more elaborate cornice. 
Specially we observe the towers, ten of them, 
shooting from all parts of the roof toward the 
clouds, as if to conduct down the lightning in 
accord with Franklin's great epoch-making exper- 



THE HEABT OF THE FAIR. 159 

iment. These subtle architectural lines and forms 
accord with the electrical energy, most subtle in 
nature, as it runs somewhat zig-zag along the eaves 
and down the sides of the structure. Nor should 
we forget the front toward the Upper Enclosure, 
showing two semicircular projections, with the 
great arched window looking out between them, 
the whole suggesting the bust of the female. 

Thus the two Buildings reveal themselves as 
counterparts. Electricity is ethereal, cloud- 
dwelling in its primal appearance, descending to 
earth as the bolt of the Gods in the legends of 
the race, being regarded always as a divine 
power. But Mining goes in the other direction; 
it is a terrestrial business, prying beneath the 
earth, and raising something from below instead 
of coming down from above. Yet just the metal 
mined is the grand instrument of electrical power. 
So they are paired, being analogous to man and 
woman, the man here being shown the mare 
earthy and the woman the more spiritual. The 
male and the female contour is suggested by 
these two fa9ades as well as in the style of 
decoration. Their unity lies in their similar 
magnitude, in the similar ground-form, as well 
as in their common aspect derived from the 
Renascence. So we may see here a kind of 
marriage, or perchance a family. 

4. Looking to the opposite side we behold 
again the towering Illinois Building which stands 



160 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

single and alone, representing the State. AJready 
in former studies its significance has been un- 
folded. And here we observe a whole region of 
domes lying between the Illinois Building and 
the Government Building, to the northeast of 
the Wooded Island. The Fisheries Building with 
its group of domes and towers manifold, the 
Marine Coffee-house with its cluster of cones and 
obelisks, the pinnacles of the Brazilian Building, 
the strange transformed dome of the Swedish 
Building further back, the steeple of the German 
Building still further to the rear, constitute a 
group of mountain peaks, each struggling to be 
seen and to attain Heaven. What does it all 
say? The group lies in the direction of the 
separate buildings of the Nations, each of which 
asserts its own individuality; the scene is 
situated in the locality devoted to manifesting 
the individual element of the Fair, specially as 
regards nationality. Between our State Build- 
ing and our National Building with their lofty 
Domes, breaks up all this little realm of lesser 
domes and towers, each aflSrming its own distinct 
existence before the whole world, as it were, 
protected by the .greater domes and following 
their example, sometimes capriciously, as is the 
case with the peaked coffee-house. 

Thus we have gcine the entire, round of the 
Upper Enclosure and taken a glance at its four 
sides, in itself a city of architectural grandeur. 



THE HEABT OF THE FAIR, 161 

Again we note the four great Domes on each 
side, to which we cannot help adding a fifth, 
greatest of all, the central one, that of Heaven 
itself, overarching this total Enclosure with a 
new but very old Dome of blue lit up with golden 
radiance. In the medieval Cathedral the sky 
was roofed over, nature was shut out, and the 
flock was shut in even from above. But here 
we feel a reconciliation with nature, she too 
belongs to the total Cathedral, and contributes 
to the new structure her vast physical Dome, to 
which the four artificial Domes around the 
horizon stand as so many domicles, or lesser 
domes. Note too that this central Dome with 
its four domicles is repeated on each the four 
Buildings which stand at each point of the com- 
pass. 

In such a view of the upper Enclosure we have 
the suggestion of a world-cathedral, embracing 
nature and art, making a new synthesis over the 
old medieval structure. A new harmony rises 
within us at the survey of such a scene, the 
harmony of a new order. In like manner, the 
Middle Enclosure suggests a world-temple, also 
open to the sky (hypsethral), making a new 
synthesis over the ancient Greek structure. The 
one is more Romantic, the other is more Classic ; 
yet in each there is a transcending of former 
limits, and a rise into a higher universality. 

Still further, the two Enclosures must be seen 
11 



162 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES, 

at last as one vast edifice, representing two great 
phases or tendencies of the one Human Spirit. 
Man built the Greek Temple and he built the 
Medieval Cathedral; here they are, both of 
them, joined together in a new development, 
which is different from the two prototypes, yet is 
clearly unfolded out of them. The final 
synthesis of the Fair must unify what has been 
transmitted by Time, and this unity must be 
seen as the movement of humanity, of which a 
mighty image is witnessed in the architecture of 
these two Enclosures. 

The wonderful appearance before us is a work 
of the Imagination, and can be adequately appre- 
ciated and explained only by the Imagination. 
Not the^ rigid rules of the Understanding, not the 
strict, spirit-confining methods of science can 
pierce the Heart of the Fair, or indeed any work 
of the Imagination, which, though it be measured 
and calculated, has also an immeasurable, incal- 
culable, bound-leaping element as its very soul. 
The Imagination alone can understand and illus- 
trate the Imagination. Hence, in these studies 
the appeal is made strongly to the reader's 
imaginative faculty ; he must be alert, yea he 
must be creative himself, throwing out gleams 
far and near, tracing hidden analogies, bringing 
to light remote suggestions. To a degree he 
must create over again in his own way these two 
Enclosures in order to make them his own; he 



THE HEABT OF TH^ FAIB. 163 

must not be afraid of going beyond the conscious 
intention of the builders in order to reach that 
deeper intention of the age, which often makes 
the artist its unconscious instrument. 



8 TATE BUILDINGS— COLONIAL, 

What is the charm in these State Buildings, 
clustered together in a kind of family group at 
the northern end of the Fair Grounds? The 
crowd wanders through them and shows by word 
and look that it is strongly attracted to the spot. 
It is not the architecture, not the exhibits, not 
even the precious relics and reminders of a by- 
gone time, which exert the sole, or, perchance, 
the main fascination. Not one building, but all 
taken together work the spell ; the whole is the 
chain which keeps the mind in delightful captiv- 
ity; that is, the charm lies in the idea. Now, 
what is this idea? 

If we have been able to catch the secret of the 
spell, it is that individuality is represented and 
strongly tested in these State Buildings. For 
(104) 



STATE BUILDINGS'- COLONIAL. 165 

each State claims to be distinctive, to have its 
own character and spirit, as well as its own 
mountains, plains, rivers, and natural resources. 
The very right to statehood seems to involve the 
capacity of becoming a complete, self-maintain- 
ing, self-governing unit; the circumscribed area 
of land is but the body of the State, which must 
have a soul — aye a soul of its own. 

Now, this soul of a State is to take on an outer 
visible manifestation, specially in its own home, 
in its own Building. Thus the State, as individ- 
ual, is represented at the World's Fair, revealing 
itself in architecture and in other fine arts, in 
material products, in cherished mementos, in 
historic deeds — above all, in its great men. Its 
particular selfhood is to be set forth apart from 
the connected exhibit, which is put into the one 
common temple of industry, where it is fused 
with other peoples, and possibly lost in the uni- 
versal mass. Undoubtedly it belongs there also, 
belongs to the Whole, but here it belongs to itself, 
and to itself alone. Individuality, then, is the 
charm which casts its spell over every sympa- 
thetic person who wanders over this portion of 
the grounds. 

Accordingly, when we start for a ramble 
through the State Buildings, we cannot help look- 
ing for something distinctive, for an appearance 
of some kind which has back of it an idea shin- 
ing through, and expressing the character of the 



166 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

people. We listen to the structure on the out- 
side to hear what it is saying, but often it utters 
nothing pertinent, having been imitated from 
abroad. Then we go inside and generally we are 
rewarded with a striking communication from 
the spirit of the State. Thus we move about 
and grope and pry, searching for the distinctive 
thing, which may be called the symbol, whereby 
we beojin to enter the domain of true knowledgre, 
all the rest being superiiuity, excrescence, mere 
information, at best preparatory. 

Man has been well defined as the symbol-mak- 
ing animal; he must put his spirit into whatever 
he says or does — the language which he speaks, 
and even thegesture or grimace which he makes, 
are inherently symbolical. When he merely 
imitates, as he often does, his imitation is a syrii- 
bol of himself, of his poverty of creative power. 
But when a great and original spirit utters itself 
in an adequate form, then the deed is epoch- 
making, and all the world cries out at last, if not 
at first: ** That is a true thing — let me share 
in its excellence and make it a part of me for- 
ever." The symbol blends in a happy harmonious 
union what is most individual with what is most 
universal, the most distinctive thing of a state 
with what most strongly appeids to all mankind. 

In a previous study we have sought to unfold 
the significance of the idea which called these 
State Buildings into existence, as they are dis- 



STATE BUILDINGS— COLONIAL. 167 

tinguished from the one great connected Temple 
of Industry, under whose unifying roof all the 
nations are assembled together by virtue of a 
common civilization. There is an universal side 
of the Exposition, manifesting itself fundament- 
ally in the unity of the peoples, and revealing 
itself specially in the architectural structures of 
the three Enclosures, Upper, Middle and Lower. 
Then there is the individual side of the Expo- 
sition, which is particularly shown in the separate 
buildings of the States and Nations. At present 
it is our purpose to look at some of the State 
Buildings in a little detail. 

It is well, perhaps, to begin with the oldest 
States, the original Thirteen, which fought the 
Revolution and formed the Constitution. They 
lie toward the East, nearest to the old world both 
in space and in spirit, having been colonized 
directly from Europe. Of these thirteen elders, 
three are not present — South Carolina, with a 
State on each side of her. North Carolina and 
Georgia. Thus the extreme Southern group is 
absent from this new Union of States ; is there 
not a meaning in that? Be the pretext what it 
may, the absence suggests some old and som.e 
recent history. But the middle Southern States 
of the colonial era are all on hand with beautiful 
buildings; Maryland comes forward with decision 
to the front, showing her typical industries and 
pointing to her great new institution of learning. 



168 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

Johns Hopkins University ; little Delaware is not 
going to be left out, but valiantly asserts her 
statehood by a commodious and hospitable home 
for her children and for her guests; Virginia, the 
mother, is not absent, indeed, could not be absent, 
without the feeling of some great loss, as if the 
heart were taken out of the family of States. 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, the 
middle Northern group, answer with emphasis 
the roll-call of this last State re-union at Jackson 
Park ; so do the four colonial New England States, 
constituting the extreme Northern group. 

Now we shall have to make a selection. Of the 
thirteen we shall take three States, which may be 
fairly deemed typical, and try to find out what 
they are saying through their Buildings, and the 
contents thereof . Virginia for the South, Massa- 
chusetts for the North, and New York, the impe- 
rial State, lying between the extremes, are here 
in waiting to give answer to any reasonable and 
courteous interrogation. 

Which State shall we consider first? There 
can be no doubt that all the colonies were rebels; 
they broke their political ties and fought England, 
the power to which their allegiance was due; they 
were born of a rebellious spirit, which in itself 
is the spirit of anarchy. Mark now the turn they 
made, truly the supreme act of the Revolutionary 
Fathers; they wheeled about, as it were, and 
went in the opposite direction ; from rebels they 



STATE BUILDINGS— COLONIAL. 169 

changed to organizers — from a mighty destruc- 
tive energy, begotten of war and revolt, to a 
mightier constructive energy, producing a new 
institutional order. For the tendency of rebel- 
lion is to go on rebelling; it is eternally self- 
begetting and self-perpetuating, unless the people 
are able to make the sharp turn around the corner 
at the right time and go the other way. Witness 
the Latin American republics for some striking 
examples of a revolution that keeps on revolu- 
tionizing ; verily, the Latin race finds it exceed- 
ingly difficult to free itself from the spirit of 
revolt when once invoked, nor is it easy for any 
race. 

Now it is the everlasting merit of Virginia 
that she produced the leaders who constructed 
the great bridge out of rebellion into order, and 
over this bridge the whole people made the 
passage — truly a Red Sea deliverance. A long 
line of Great Men, with essentially one great 
thought, Presidents, Statesmen, Judges ; they 
reach from George Washington to the last days 
of John Marshall, extending through a period of 
fifty years or more. Such is the typical deed 
of Mother Virginia, mothering the Nation, which 
deed should be somehow represented when she 
represents her best self at the World's Fair. 

It is plain, therefore, that Virginia had really 
but one selection to make for her Building — she 
could hardly help choosing Mount Vernon, the 



170 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

home of Washington when he had retired from 
active life, and had passed into the Nation's ideal. 
After serving two terms of the Presidency he laid 
down his high office and became a private citizen. 
He had also been the first soldier, yes, the first 
rebel in the land, but he renounced his command 
voluntarily, and obeyed the law simply as one of 
the people. Thus he is the man most completely 
representing the typical deed of Virginia. 

Let us look a little into the central fact of his 
character, for the person is more important than 
the house before us. Lurking in all authority is 
a demon which tempts, especially the Great Man, 
at the high tide of triumph. It whispers seduc- 
tively: " Thou art now the first of all — nobody 
can resist thee; pluck the fruit of thy victory, 
which is thine if thou darest." But Washinojton 
refused to listen to the demonic voice, speaking 
out of his success; after ending England's sup- 
remacy he would not seize it for himself ; he 
would not be king of a people whom he had freed 
of a king. Ambition was unable to unsettle that 
splendid mental equilibrium, his special gift of 
genius, and turn him over into the opposite 
of himself through victory. The Weird Sisters 
met him in the day of success, as they met 
Macbeth and must meet every successful man, 
but Washington would not hearken to their seduc- 
tive prophecies. Not his military ability, not 
his political sagacity, made him the supreme 



STATE B UIL DINGS —COL ONIAL 1 7 1 

man of his time, but the mastery over his own 
success, which could not defeat him, as it has 
defeated some of the mightiest heroes of the 
world — Themistocles, Cromwell, Napoleon. A 
spiritual balance he possessed so complete that it 
offsets any one-sided genius, however colossal ; 
he is through it a more universal man than 
Napoleon, and has produced a greater and more 
lasting influence. A world-man, or more nearly 
so than any other person of these last centuries — 
him Virginia produced, and erects his habitation 
at the World's Fair. 

But is he typical of Virginia as a State? Cer- 
tainly typical of her as she was a hundred. years 
ago, for it was the early Virginia Presidents, 
along with Chief Justice Marshall, a Virginian, 
who established firmly the Constitution of the 
United States, making it the successful, prac- 
tical instrument of the Federal idea, and thus 
transforming the Union into a solid fact. Many 
good Constitutions in other countries will not 
work; easy enough is it to write them, but to 
make them march is another matter. Ours, too, 
had to be made to march ; but so good was the 
start that, with a little mending here and there, 
it is still marching. 

Another interrogation at this point : Does the 
Mount Vernon House represent the spirit of 
Virginia at present? Not so easy of answer; 
Virginia has a second time gone into rebellion, 



172 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

and has come out of it a second time, having 
brought forth a most marvelous second crop of 
Great Men therein, among them a new hero, 
whom she delights to call a second Washington, 
but now a defeated Washino^ton, without havings 
had the chance of making the sharp turn from 
destructive rebellion to constructive order. The 
situation, therefore, is radically different; the 
great Washingtonian test has not been, could not 
be, applied in this last case. She is right, how- 
ever, in sending to the World's Fair the first 
Washington, about whom there is no question ; 
but she lets us know, even here, that she has not 
forgotten the second. 

From the person let us pass to the building. 
The Mount Vernon House is an unpretentious 
structure, yet not humble; of republican sim- 
plicity, yet not without a certain appearance of 
comfort. It has a high, spacious porch in front, 
without any railing, or other obstruction; it 
extends an invitation to the wayfarer to come in 
and sit down, and from this spot to look out upon 
the world. The floor of the porch is almost 
even with the ground ; no great effort would be 
required to step up to its level — there is equality 
here with the earth itself. No fence runs around 
the yard to warn off" the pedestrian ; open to man- 
kind is the expression on the House's face — 
aff"able, easy, without striving, yet without 
exclusiveness. 



STATE BUILDINGS— COLONIAL. 173 

If we go inside of the House, we find an orderly, 
simple arrangement of rooms, filled with many 
sacred mementos of the domestic life of Wash- 
ington. Virginia has placed here works by some 
of her artists ; also, we observe a book-case filled 
with volumes written by Virginia authors. A 
very commendable purpose one reads in the 
attempt ; the State gives us to understand that 
she, too, has done something in the literary and 
artistic line. But one feels that her greatness 
does not lie in this direction. 

We cannot help looking to the rear of the 
Mount Vernon House. There we behold two 
annexes joined with the main building by a roofed 
passage, which is open at the sides and slightly 
curved. What are they, connected, yet held off 
backward at arm's-length, as it were? Kitchens 
and dining-rooms, the domain of the black ser- 
vants of the household — African slaves, whose 
quarters were still further to the rear, and are 
not here reproduced. Of another race they are, 
almost of another world; yet they are human, 
speaking the articulate speech of men ; nay, many 
of them have as much Caucasian as African blood 
in their veins, but the least drop of Africa taints 
and sends its innocent victims to the rear into the 
slave quarters. 

At this point, then, our Mount Vernon equality 
passes into its opposite with a plunge that makes 
the head swim. Quite a little speck in the sky 



174 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

was the matter one hundred years ago, causing 
some uneasiness, though pushed into the back- 
ground; but it is destined to come into the 
foreground just at Mount Vernon with all the 
vigor of a new-born epoch, amid the roar of 
artillery and musketry. War will rage around 
the home of Washington for four years, and will, 
in the end, sweep away the servile distinction 
which he could not erase, for the time was not 
yet ripe, and he was not the man chosen for that 
act of the World's History. 

In a reflective mood the visitor will sit under 
the willows behind the Mount Vernon House at 
the Fair, musing on the past and dreaming about 
the future. What is the drift of the centuries? 
Where points the hour-hand on the clock of time? 
A pleasant voice will rouse him, speaking at his 
side: *' Will you be served with some ice- 
cream ? " On looking up he will behold, if he be 
in luck, a fine appearing mulatto woman of 
middle age; he will be a little startled at first, 
for she seems, somehow, to fit in just at this 
point, rising like a sybil to answer his question. He 
will give her his little commission, and when she 
returns, he propounds his interrogations; *' Are 
you from Mount Vernon? " ''I lived there many 
years." Whereof she gives proof by telling a 
number of facts and supplying certain things 
which are here missing, among others the 
slave quarters. Interest demands : ** May I ask 



STATE B UILDING S — COL ONIAL. 1 75 

your name?" ** Mrs. Washington." '* Indeed I 
Then 1 judge you belong to the Washington 
family." *' Yes, I belonged to that family in two 
ways. I was the slave of Col. John A. Wash- 
ington, who was killed during the late war." 
Here was a moment's hesitation, after which fol- 
lowed this statement: ** And I am descended 
from one of the nephews of George Washington." 
*' And you were held a slave in the family?" 
**Iwas, and it still makes my blood boil; but 
all that is now past, and I tell you something else 
is coming." With which dark vaticination she 
flits off without waiting for further questioning. 
Indeed, has she said enough? Such is the ghost 
that will appear to the astonished visitor even 
at Chicago, behind the Mount Vernon House, and 
vigorously shake him out of his dreams. Typical, 
indeed, is the appearance, not an accident. Vir- 
ginia has sent her mulatto sybil along with the 
home of Washington to the World's Fair, con- 
sciously or unconsciously completing the symbol- 
ism thereof, for in the background of many a 
Virginia household some such weird spectre 
stalked and uttered her curse. 

It is surely now time to pass to Massachusetts, 
whose house lies only a few rods distant from that 
of Virginia, and still nearer in imagination. 
Somehow, these two older States place themselves 
alongside of each other, both by way of contrast 
and of resemblance. Massachusetts is the most 



176 WOFLD'S FATE STUDIES. 

important of the New England group of Com- 
monwealths, and may, in a general manner, 
stand for them all. She is especially distin- 
guished by her culture. She has produced the 
greatest literary men of the country, the heroes 
of the printed word. She has fought in two 
wars, in the old and in the new Revolution, and 
has fought well; still she has produced no soldier 
of the first rank, probably none of the second 
rank. After all, Ben Butler is about the best 
she has done in this line. Her statesmen may 
claim a higher place than her soldiers, still by no 
means the highest; they have been distinguished 
as orators, as rhetoricians, as masters of golden 
speech ; they have not been great organizers, not 
the leaders in the far reaching constructive 
policies of the Nation. Daniel Webster and 
Charles Sumner, whom Massachusetts would 
probably call her two greatest statesmen, have 
left little behind them of the positive work of 
State-building, but they both possessed in the 
highest degree the gift of eloquence ; and they 
have handed down to us the finest political dis- 
courses of the time. Webster dropped to the 
rear in the greatest national movement of his age, 
and lost the headship of his own people. Sum- 
ner remained to the end a stimulator of the inner 
moral spirit in politics, an excellent New England 
preacher — hardly a great architect of the Nation. 
In Sumner Massachusetts simply continued her 



STATE BUILDINGS - COLONIAL. 177 

line of Puritan ministers, her chief spiritual 
product, and gave thera a secular vocation. Note 
well these Puritan ministers, for we shall see their 
hand in all that Massachusetts has done, and in 
all that her children have done throughout their 
migrations in the western States of the Union. 
Emerson belongs to them with a slight change 
of calling, as well as the whole galaxy of New 
England poets and prose writers, certainly the 
best that the country has yet seen. 

Now, what has Massachusetts built at the 
World's Fair as her distinctive structure? She 
has chosen the house of John Hancock, a mer- 
chant, a man of wealth and of public spirit; a 
hot rebel in the time of the old Revolution ; a 
fair speaker and a loud protester. Again we 
must observe that the man is more important than 
his house ; but for him the latter would not be 
shown at the Fair. 

We are inclined to question whether this selec- 
tion be the best ; that is, the most symbolic selec- 
tion. The Puritan meeting house, with its 
preacher, ought in some way to be at the heart 
of the Massachusetts offering; instead of it we 
behold the mansion of Beacon street, with a gilded 
codfish on the top as a weather-vane, adjusting 
itself to the fitful breezes of Lake Michigan. 
The codfish aristocracy has set on high its armo- 
rial sign in apparent rivalry with New York, just 
opposite, and certainly it is not to be left out of 

12 



178 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

the Massachusetts inventory ; still, the true aris- 
tocracy of the Bay State is the intellectual one, 
starting with that line of little Puritan popes in 
every village, and reaching down to the great 
authors of the present century, by direct physi- 
cal descent as well as by spiritual evolution. 

Hancock was of good family, descended from 
several generations of ministers, which descent 
was the chief patent of New England nobility. 
He was, therefore, born a prominent figure, or 
rather figure-head. He was president of the 
Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and was so 
prominent in his rebellion against England that 
General Gage organized an expedition to capture 
him, which, h'owever, did not succeed, but did 
succeed in bringing on the battles of Concord and 
Lexington, very famous in Massachusetts his- 
tory. Then he was sent as a delegate to the 
Continental Congress at Philadelphia, of which 
he was chosen president, and which issued the 
Declaration of Independence. The name of John 
Hancock, appended to that instrument as P^esi- 
ident of the Congress, written in a bold, clear 
hand, has put the man upon a pedestal, to be 
seen by the whole world for all time. Though 
his chirography is superb, indeed, unsurpassable, 
he did not write the instrument itself ; that was 
the work of Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia. 

Aofain Massachusetts has selected John Han- 
cock, with his House, and sent both out West to 



STATE BUILDINGS— COLONIAL, 179 

the World's Fair, to represent her, probably for 
quite the same reasons which induced her more 
than one hundred years ago to send him to Phil- 
adelphia as her representative. His family con- 
nection was of the best; his grandfather was 
already an important man, and a minister. He 
was himself a graduate of Harvard, and thus a 
person of culture, with something of a talent for 
pul)lic speaking. Not a great man, but of good 
general average, with a shrewd eye to business 
and money making, also a Yankee trait by no 
means uncommon ; a strong protester, even to 
downright rebellion and fight. Him, along with 
the house on Beacon Hill, codfish and all, let us 
accept as typical, though not the best type, of 
Massachusetts. 

We may next take a glance at the architecture 
of the Hancock House, which has a sleek, tidy 
look, with some pretense to a palace. Note, first 
of all, that it is raised high above the surround- 
ing level ; it has two flights of steps outside, one 
of which leads from the street to the terrace, the 
other from the terrace to the portico of the house. 
A double elevation is this, in emphatic contrast 
to the Mt. Vernon equality, whose porch lies on 
a par with the rest of the earth. One cannot 
help noticing the strong, well-built wall enclosing 
the yard of the Hancock House, and upon this 
wall runs a fence which does not invite the way- 
farer to climb over, or if he did he might find 



180 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

the bull-dog. Not a very grand or ostentatious 
edifice ; still in it we may mark a stage of aris- 
tocracy, exclusion, wealth ; the colonial time must 
have felt its distinctions more than we do at 
present. We read, too, in its lines a turning 
inward from the outside world, perchance, also, 
aspiration, the struggle upwards; on the whole, 
it has a suggestion of a more pronounced inner 
life than can be observed in the Mt. Vernon 
House, which has openness to the world, democ- 
racy, hospitality, the free and easy way of 
living, which is always in danger of becoming 
shiftless. 

In the midst of such reflections the thought 
intrudes itself that the Puritans chiefly came 
from the humble class in England, and were 
originally Cromwellian republicans, while the 
Virginians were mostly of gentle blood, and once 
bore the title of cavaliers. Are these two States 
exchanging characters in the century and a half 
of American life? Somewhat, yet not wholly; 
Virginia has developed a strong democratic 
element in her aristocracy and Massachusetts 
has developed a strong aristocratic element in 
her democracy. 

But in the rear of the Hancock House we see 
no such slave quarters as we have noted at Mount 
Vernon ; there is no such distinction here, with 
its black cloud threatening horrors. That is cer- 
tainly an advantage. The earthquake of the 



STATE BUILDINGS — COLONIAL. 181 

second Revolution will roll and heave around 
Mount Vernon, bringing devastation and death, 
but it will not reach the neighborhood of Beacon 
Hill, though the latter will hear the rumble in 
the distance — will have to gird on its armor and 
march. 

Such are the two structures, Northern and 
Southern, taken on account of their occupants 
and elevated into symbols by their respective 
States. No doubt climate plays its part in the 
architecture of both, but their significance is not 
thereby changed ; climate has its influence upon 
character, too, and even upon ability. Then 
the one House was intended for the city, speci- 
ally for Boston city, let it not be forgotten ; the 
other was intended for the country, and indicates 
a rural life — open, less constrained, less intense 
than an urban life. But herein again the differ- 
ence is typical ; Massachusetts concentrates her- 
self in one city ; Virginia has really no city, but 
is scattered over the country on the plantations. 
The same distinction runs through all the North 
and all the South; the one with a centripetal, the 
other with a centrifugal, tendency, culminating 
at last in a Civil War between Union and Dis- 
union. 

So much by way of contrast ; still Massachu- 
setts and Virginia have shown a common trait at 
the Fair. Each has selected the private dwelling 
of its heroic individual ; no other State, we be- 



182 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

lieve, has taken just that way of symbolizing 
itself. A certain degree of hero-worship lies 
therein, as well as reverence for the past. Both 
these ancient sisters (or grandmothers, if you 
please ) say to the younger States out West : We 
are older than you, we won the independence 
which you enjoy, we formed the institutions 
under which you have prospered; you ought to 
look up to us with gratitude and veneration. 
You cannot show a Washington, or even a Han- 
cock. You are a little inclined to forget our 
services in your behalf before you were born, 
and slight the respect due to age. Look upon 
the two Houses which we send to grace your 
Fair ; you have no such venerable structures, no 
such illustrious occupants, whose lives stretch 
back more than a century, while you saw the 
light but yesterday. 

Thus the Colonial States have a past and live 
in it, and point to it with a certain sense of 
superiority over those which have no past, or a 
very small, recent fragment thereof. We may 
well glory in the claims of Massachusetts and 
Virginia — they have produced the Great Men of 
the country, they are right in exalting the 
individual at the World's Fair; no other State or 
States can compete with them in that line. Both 
had a kind of aristocracy, or rule of the best. 
The one was an aristocracy of intellect, made up 
of a long line of Puritan preachers and writers, 



STATE BUILDINGS— COLONIAL. 183 

the most protesting of all Protestants, carrying 
their protest into politics as well as into religion, 
till at last Puritanism protests against itself and 
begins sloughing itself off, alwa3's, meanwhile, 
stirring up the inner man, and troubling the 
waters everywhere, with a prodigious efferves- 
cence of the spirit. The other was a landed 
aristocracy, creating institutions — organizing, 
not criticising, the builders of the Nation, we 
repeat, yet with the everlasting danger of be- 
coming stagnant, yes, ossified, unless prodded, 
criticized, and, in case of necessity, damned by 
the Yankee preacher, who can do that part of the 
work to perfection. The two States, Massachu- 
setts and Virginia, are complements of each 
other, as thought and action, the word and deed, 
must in the end fit harmoniously together. Both 
are to enter into the complete national character 
of America, which is still in the process of con- 
struction. The glory of Virginia is her men of 
action, yet she has lovingly gathered her writers 
into her Home, proud of her limited achievement 
in letters. The glory of Massachusetts is her 
literature, which she has not gathered into her 
Home, where it ought to be, and thus has left 
out of the Hancock House any adequate hint of 
her greatest work, of her most significant national 
deed. Opinions will differ, but our judgment is, 
that Massachusetts has not placed her best foot 
foremost in this matter ; if she had put up and 



184 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

attractively arranged a library of her authors, 
the Hancock House would have been the Mecca 
of the intellect of the Fair, as Mount Vernon is 
the magnet of its patriotism. Herein Germany 
has set the best example; she has built the finest 
House on the grounds, and put her book-writers 
in possession, not of a corner to one side, but of 
the whole building, from top to bottom. 

Between Massachusetts and Virginia, we may 
place New York, which lies in the middle, and is 
the largest and wealthiest of the sisterhood of 
States. It was settled not by the Anglo-Saxon, 
but by the Dutch, also a. branch of the great 
Teutonic family — a sea-faring commercial peo- 
ple, imbued strongly with the idea of freedom, 
but without any gift of universal expression ; 
Holland has produced no writing which can 
be placed in the rank of the World's Literature, 
in any high sense of the term. Nor has New 
York ever had any great line of writers or states- 
men, who have molded the Nation's thought and 
the Nation's institutions, as have Massachusetts 
and Virginia. She has produced eminent individ- 
uals in literature and statesmanship, like Irving 
and Seward, but no succession; no epoch-making 
deed or idea can be laid at her door. New York 
is a merchant — she buys and sells, even in liter- 
ature and statesmanship ; she does not produce 
her own spiritual goods, or what she produces is 
not of the best quality. How can she? Still, 



STATE BUILDINGS— COLONIAL. 185 

her services have been great to the country ; she 
has stood between the two fighting branches of 
Anglo-Saxondom, the Puritan of the North, and 
the Cavalier of the South, and made them keep 
the peace ; she has been a kind of balance-wheel 
in the Union, through her conservative commer- 
cial spirit and her Dutch stolidity. She is rich, 
very rich, the treasures of the sea and land have 
been poured into her lap ; must she not manifest 
the fact at the World's Exposition? 

The New York State Building is distinctly the 
palace of these grounds ; a lavish magnificence 
dazzles the eye; it shows already from the out- 
side the greatest display of wealth. At the first 
glance we say: ** The owner is rich; he has so 
much money that he iiardly knows what to do 
with it." Surely he does not need to economize; 
moreover, he is making a position for himself 
through his expenditures; he asserts his superi- 
orty in that way. There is no need of all this 
costly, but tawdry, ornamentation ; it really nurts 
the artistic effect to a person of pure taste ; but 
the outlay can be afforded only by a feW multi- 
millionaires. Thus the Building draws a distinc- 
tion, which becomes social; an aristocracy of 
wealth has arisen in New York, and is asserting 
itself also at the World's Fair, being quite 
different from those two other aristocracies of 
Virginia and Massachusetts. But let us scan 
closely the Building. 



186 WOULD' S FAIB STUDIES. 

Broad, grandiose steps conduct us first to 
a terrace, then to the covered entrance. All the 
luxury of the Italian palace is reproduced with a 
patrician pride; copies of the Berberini lions 
guard the entrance, gilded chandeliers give us 
light — particularly in the day-time. As we go 
in, two fountains are playing on either hand, in 
front of an elaborate background of mosaic, 
studded with classic masks and figures. When 
we have entered, we behold Pompeiian decora- 
tion in the roomy vestibule and on the walls of 
the stairway. Imitation of the later Italian 
Renaissance meets the eye on every side; in gen- 
eral, it is but an imitation of a Roman imitation 
of ancient Hellas. What made New York select 
just that? Similar social conditions beget similar 
tastes and similar buildings the world over ; wealth 
is going to make itself valid, not through original 
genius, which it has not, but through splendid 
reproduction. But it is gorgeous, dazzling, fas- 
cinating, while it lasts ; look at the people gazing 
on the spectacle. The thoughtful visitor, also, 
will not fail to throw his search-light upon the 
scenic display of the New York Building, seeking 
to find out the idea lurking in the phenomenon. 

One observes that there is no large, open 
portico surrounding it, like that of the Pennsyl- 
vania House near by, hospitably inviting the 
stranger to come in and make himself at home. 
Yet the New York House has two porticos, not in 



STATE BUILDINGS— COLONIAL. 187 

front, but at the sides of the building. Note 
that these porticos have no steps connecting with 
the rest of the world; they cannot be reached 
from the outside, being built on a high and steep 
platform. Quite inaccessible for me, and pos- 
sibly for you, my reader ; the man who enjoys 
them must reach them from the inside with the 
special consent and invitation of the owner, who 
evidently scans closely the credentials of every 
comer, and whose desire is to keep out the crowd. 
To-day being World's Fair day we can enter 
with the masses and get a glimpse of what is 
inside. 

Thus we pass to the porticos ; each is guarded 
by two parallel lines of columns, which not only 
support the roof — one line of them would 
suffice for that — but shut in the people there, 
excluding, likewise, with some emphasis. I 
noticed that everybody sitting in either of the 
porticos turned inwardly; hardly ever did one 
feel inclined to cast a glance outwardly upon the 
[)assing multitude. We all, being the favored 
set this time, looked at each other in a semi- 
circle, or gazed at the fountain which was spurt- 
ing \ip a little streiim in the center of the portico. 

Enough of this; let us now ascend to the sec- 
ond story. Here are some rooms, ^containing 
historic souvenirs of various kinds, specially of 
the old Dutch pattern. New York remembers 
her origin — the character of Holland has not yet 



188 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

wholly disappeared from her people. But these 
lesser rooms surround and embrace, as it were, 
one inside room, the center of the Building, or 
the very heart thereof, into which the visitor is 
curious to take a peep. 

This is the reception room, out of which New 
York money has made a very significant symbol 
of itself. A grand spectacular display cer- 
tainly — decoration is piled upon decoration. 
Look at the gilded and flowery figures; look at 
this Greek column, made to hold up a burden in 
old Greece, here supporting festoons and mani- 
fold showy ornaments, with a golden base and 
capital. Clearly the place is for the few, the 
room is the select one in the House; may we not 
call it the reception room of New York's chosen 
400, the famous cream of that wealthy city's 
society ? But note another distinction : up yon- 
der are three balconies, like boxes at the theatre, 
from which the occupants can look down upon 
the 400. Thus the cream of society makes a dis- 
tinction within itself, for have we not here the 
jcream of the cream? Verily, the demon of ex- 
clusion enters the exclusive circle, and there 
keeps on dividing and excluding. 

One cannot help asking: For whom, then, are 
these boxes? In an aristocracy of wealth, the 
rich are the good, but the richest are the best. 
New York herself has made the selection. In 
one of these boxes we would have to place the 



STATE BUILDINGS ^COLONIAL. 189 

Vanderbilts, in another, the Astors ; the third 
may be reasonably left open to the coming man, 
an object of striving for all New York. Look 
once more; note the increased amount of gilding 
on these boxes, above and below, hinting the gist 
of the matter. One asks the attendant, if it be 
possible to get in up there. No, that part is 
private, perchance sacred. 

In such a manner has New York built for her- 
self a home at the Fair. It seems a hymn 
of praise to wealth; it shows a lavish expense 
upon self. The individual is seeking to 
exploit himself by spending more money 
than most men possess. Therein he draws 
his line of superiority over the rest of 
the world, who cannot live in a house of this 
kind. Three such lines of distinction and exclu- 
sion we may note. First, the New York Build- 
ing separates itself from all the other State 
Buildings by its lavish display of ornament; sec- 
ond, the reception room separates itself from all 
the other rooms by a more lavish display of orna- 
ment ; third, the three balconies separate them- 
selves from the reception-room by the most 
complete cut-off in the Building. In addition to 
these distinctions, we mav add the two hi^h- 
perched, excluding porticos. 

Have we wrongly interpreted the spirit of this 
edifice? And, if rightly interpreted in the main, 
is it typical of New York? Or, if true of New 



190 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES, 

York city, does it hold of New York State? To 
such questions the reader will have to give his 
own answer, which admits of many grades of 
affirmation and denial. We all know that there 
are strong currents of opposition, in New York 
itself, to the monied arrogance of the New York 
miUionaires ; but the latter are now on toi), and 
are going to make hay while the 'sun shines. 
They have their hold on society as well as on 
commerce; and even literature, the bond-break- 
ing, the freedom-giving word of the spirit, has 
to pay them court with due obeisance. At pres- 
ent they dominate, whereof the sign is this 
House. 

Such are our three colonial State Build- 
ings, those of Virginia, Massachusetts and New 
York — the two extremes and the mean, we may 
consider them. Along the Atlantic coast these 
States lie, from North to South, and form the 
starting points of the great movement of the 
Nation, which movement has been from East to 
West, with the course of empire, and along the 
path of the Sun in Heaven. It is the last and 
greatest stage of that mighty Aryan migration, 
which thousands of years ago, broke loose from 
crystallized Asia, from the very heart thereof, 
and started for the Occident, and has been mov- 
inor thitherwards ever since in search of new 
worlds — sweeping over Europe, crossing the 
Atlantic, and spanning a continent; moreover. 



8TA TE B UIL DINGS —COL ONIAL . 191 

bearing the World's History along its track as 
the record of its progress. This last and great- 
est movement of the limit-leaping Aryan spirit 
toward the West is also to be shown at the 
World's Fair, if the latter be complete ; especi- 
ally must it be shown at Chicago, the very centre 
and final bloom thereof. Hence the necessity 
for another grapple with these State Buildings. 



STATE BUILDINGS — FROM EAST 
TO WEST. 

In the previous study we gave some account 
of the State Buildings belonging to the common- 
wealths which were the original coU:)nies of the 
present United States. They ran, in the main, 
from North to South, along the Atlantic sea- 
board, and thus each colony had its own road 
over the broad waters, connecting it directly 
with Europe. We shall now run a line in the 
opposite direction — from East to West, the 
direction in which population has migrated from 
Ocean to Ocean. We shall take Pennsylvania as 
a starting point, the central State of the original 
thirteen, and move West, somewhat as the center 
of population has moved across the Alleghenies 
into the Mississippi Valley. 
(192) 



STATE BUILDINGS— EAST TO WEST. 193 

At present only a few of the State Buildings 
can be. selected for special mention, but the few 
will, we hope, in a general way represent all. 
The movement is the grand fact, the movement 
of the whole mass westward, in which a develop- 
ment of the means of transportation takes place 
which scatters the people with the greatest celer- 
ity, yet holds them together in complete unity, 
so that distance is unable to disunite the new and 
the old States. Thus the Great Eepublic be- 
comes a reality, and the Universal Republic is 
seen to be a possibility. 

Starting, then, with the Pennsylvania House, 
one cannot help observing that it makes a friendly 
impression upon the spectator at the first glance. 
The striking fact is the portico, which is high and 
wide, and runs around the entire building, except 
a small portion to the rear, hardly visible. There 
is no fence, no sign of exclusion ; a few easy 
steps lead up to the portico, which very distinctly 
invites everybody to come in and sit down for a 
rest on a chair or rocker, there being of both the 
greatest abundance. The result is, larger num- 
bers of satisfied faces look out from its covering 
than from any other place on the grounds ; peo- 
ple drop down into a seat as if at home, and 
repose for a time from the fatigues of sight- 
seeuig. 

The work here is simplicity itself; a good plain 
floor, a high ceiling, upheld by the least orna- 

13 



194 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

mented kind of columDS — the Roman-Doric. 
A profusion of modest but very comfortable 
chairs has an exceedingly hospitable effect — 
one can observe here what even a chair can say. 
The walls of the House are made of beautiful 
pressed brick; they are substantial, not built of 
staff, though the residence be for six months 
only. There is a solidity and a sincerity about 
the structure, and its furnishings, which leave 
not only an artistic, but also a decided moral, 
impression, as all good work does, even brick- 
laying. 

With no little satisfaction we say to ourselves, 
as we look about us: Here is the most friendly, 
hospitable, cordial piece of construction to be 
found in all these Buildings ; do exclusiveness 
whatever, but no vulgarity. And how plain ! 
Truly a Quaker plainness and neatness, with the 
most genuine human kindness. The spirit of 
William Penn built this portico, and is now pres- 
ent. One can almost see the tidy Quaker house- 
wife darting among her guests with white cap 
and spotless gown, and hear her saying to each 
one present in her hearty dialect : '* Thee is wel- 
come." But mark! Let there be no undue 
familiarity, no presumption. You feel at once 
that you are in the house of a gentleman, doubt- 
less a plain Quaker gentleman, who expects you 
to behave yourself. He is wealthy, and wishes 
others to share in his wealth, of which he regards 



STATE BUILDINGS— EAST TO WEST. 195 

himself as only the steward in the service of the 
Lord. Still he is a very careful and most 
economical steward. 

When we look into the interior, the same pleas- 
ant aspect of things greets us in the main. A 
little greater outlay; perhaps a little more 
comfort; surely the master of this House must 
be in easy circumstances, and he is getting beyond 
William Penn. But how different from New York ! 
Indeed, these two houses must have been built 
by way of contrast : the most exclusive and the 
least, the most ostentatious and the least, the 
Quaker's home and the Patrician's palace — be- 
hold them alongside of each other at the World's 
Fair in a kind of rivalry for the friendly glances 
of us all, the happy visitors. 

The Pennsylvania. House has, however, another 
element: one which fights and has fought on 
sufficient provocation. The peaceful Quaker 
withdraws somewhat into the background in the 
room where the Liberty Bell is placed. A new 
emotion rises strongly within us. Pennsylvania 
salutes us with her most sacred relic — sacred, 
because of its connection with the Declaration of 
Independence. She wishes to associate herself 
with the birth of the Nation, and the first note 
inside her House is that of Patriotism. She has 
certainly shown a strong national feeling, and 
mighty has been the response of the people. 

And this Bell, what is the charm of it? Noth- 



196 WOELD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

ing but an old cracked piece of metal — throw 
it away. Not by any means; it has become a 
symbol, the people have made it their own; they 
read in it somehow the birth of their nationality. 
How they gather about it, look at it, poke it to 
see if it will still ring! Canes, umbrellas, fingers 
offer to touch it; stop ! Hands off ! There are 
two sets of railing around it, and inside the rail- 
ing sit two policemen to prevent it from being 
caressed to pieces. The people lean over and 
gaze and read the inscription ; in particular they 
examine the crack closely, and wonder how just 
that came to be, and why it did not go further, 
and what it means. 

Thus the Liberty Bell has become elevated, or 
transfigured into a symbol, the highest destiny 
which can fall to any transitory piece of matter. 
The visible has become the mere sign of the 
invisible; the outer thing is marvellously trans- 
muted into the inner spirit. The old Bell first 
rang out the joy of the people at the 
Birth of the Nation ; that has become 
its universal meaning; it still rings out the 
joy of the people at the Birth of the Nation, 
though its tongue be now silent. So it is at 
present hardly a real Bell, for it rings no more 
to the external ear; but it is a ghostly symbol- 
ical Bell, which rings in the soul of the Nation, 
and will keep on ringing while nationality lasts. 
And we may say, too, that the first sound of it 



STATE BUILDINGS— EAST TO WEST. 197 

from the old tower of Independence Hall was 
heard round the world quite as emphatically as 
the famous shot at Concord bridge. Well may 
the people press about it, and scrutinize it, and 
try to test it once more, for even the seeing it is 
able to set the heart in vibration and make the 
whole man rino^, he himself beino^ transformed 
for time into the Liberty Bell, Such is the 
power of the symbol, when once made and 
adopted by the people ; it stands for what is 
deepest and holiest in the man, and will stir the 
depths as nothing else can. 

In fact, the observing visitor will become as 
much interested in the people as in the Bell, 
perchance, more so ; he will lurk in a corner near 
by, and seek to hear their observations, as they 
look upon their holy relic. Great will be his 
reward, if he be in luck; he will catch casual 
looks, gestures, even stray words on the wing, 
which will remain long with him, perhaps a life- 
time. Here comes the Western farmer from one 
of the more remote rural districts; he stops and 
looks, what a gleam over his face ! He is a 
veteran, he has the Grand Army button in his 
plain coat of jeans ; he responded, in his youth, to 
the call of his country, and now his heart again 
responds; after a long gaze, he is not satisfied, 
but puts his hand into his pocket, and takes an 
extra chew of tobacco, in order to get the right 
grip on the thing. Legend will begin to play 



198 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

around the Bell, the main point being: How did 
the crack get there? One hears that, when 
somebody undertook to ring it at the passage of 
the Fugitive Slave Law, it defiantly broke and 
threatened to go to pieces. Another story is, 
that the fissure was produced in the first days of 
the late Civil War. Thus, the people mytholo- 
gize and weave about their symbol an ever-vary- 
ing net-work of fable, possibly for the future 
use of the poet. Children come to view it with 
their parents and ask their hard little question : 
*'Why not mend the crack and make it ring 
again?" A group of negroes look at it with 
no little awe, and conclude that it has something 
to do with the Proclamation of Emancipation. 
How can they help thinking that it must 
have been rung for them, specially on the 
great day of their liberty? One black fellow 
gives account of the matter, somehow in this 
fashion : ** I tells you she was fust rung by Massa 
Abe Lincoln for the niggas; and when he got 
good hold of de rope, he rung her and rung her 
till she bust." An Englishman comes along, 
red-faced, stout-bodied; with some effort he 
stoops and looks under the bell at the first 
glance; why just that action, I wonder? I stoop, 
too, and look underneath, which I had not 
thought of doino: before. As he straiirhtened up 
again, with an air of satisfaction, he muttered to 
himself, ** It is tied." What is tied? — I query to 



STATE BUILDINGS^ EAST TO WEST. 199 

myself, and look once more. Why, the clapper 
of the Bell is fastened; evidently our English 
cousin was afraid that it might start off ringing 
again, and he did not wish to hear it. And 
the fact must be confessed, that sometimes a 
Liberty Bell may get to be all chipper, which 
needs to be tied up for a while, to give the world 
a little rest. Still, mankind wants to hear the 
clapper going again after a time of silence. 
Very surprised I was to find doubting Thomas 
present among the visitors of Liberty Bell; 
probably he is everywhere. In plain, rustic 
garb, yet with skeptical leer, he declares : '* This 
is not the real Liberty Bell, it is a sham, a 
counterfeit gotten up to deceive the people." 
But it was sent by the Governor of Pennsylvania, 
to the Fair. *' All the more likely to be a cheat, 
being the work of a politician ; there are a great 
many things here which are not what they claim 
to be ; I tell you the whole business is a humbug." 
So he went his way doubting and denying; 
Mephistopheles must also come to the Fair, and 
burn a little of his sulphur there. Pity the 
person whose first salutation to every man and to 
everything he meets, is, <* You are a lie." What 
response can he get from the whole world, 
except, *' You are another ! " 

Tlie truth about the crack in the Liberty Bell 
is said to be as follows : At the death of John 
Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, 



200 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

which took phice at Philadelphia July 6th, 1835, 
while the Bell was beiog tolled, it parted of 
itself and ceased to r'm^ ; its life went out with 
the last of those Great Men who organized the 
Nation after the destructive period of the Revo- 
lution. Its work was done with theirs, and 
stopped with theirs, whereby it has become a 
symbol of the Birth of the Nation. 

As we pass upstairs in the Pennsylvania 
House, we look about and behold a significant 
picture. Another strong touch of national 
symbolism greets us ; the picture portrays 
the Birth of the American Flag. Thus 
Pennsylvania again seeks to identify her- 
self with the beginning of the Nation, in the 
present case with the origin of the national em- 
blem itself. A woman is sewing its pieces 
together — -three men are looking on, in the main 
helpless, yet making some remarks now and then, 
we may suppose. The woman is probably 
Betsy Ross, the deft needle-woman of Philadel- 
phia, who is said to have first stitched together 
the Stars and Stripes, and also to have made 
elegant ruffled shirts for George Washington, 
such as were worn by gentlemen in those days. 
You and I, my reader, would like to have wit- 
nessed that scene in which the Father of his coun- 
try gave si)ecific directions to the cunning-handed 
seamstress about his wardrobe. Philadelphia 
still points out with pride the exact spot ( 239 



STATE BUILDINGS -^ EAST TO WEST. 201 

Arch street) where the American Flag was born, 
born of a woman. The other story we shall 
probably have to dismiss, which tells of Mollie 
Stark sewing together the variegated stripes of 
her petticoat, and thus bringing to light the 
original Banner of Liberty. Finally Pennsyl- 
vania has put on the top of her House the old 
bell-tower of Independence Hall, and thus fin- 
ishes her national offering. 

Every American, accordingly, feels at home in 
the Pennsylvania House. He is first welcomed 
by the hospitable portico, then he goes inside, 
where his national feeling is touched at the start 
and remains in vibration to the end of his stay. 
But not one in a thousand Americans can feel at 
home in the New York House, just at hand ; it is 
copied from the edifice of a partrician, with all its 
fine social discriminations and exclusiveness, and 
transferred to a moneyed oligarchy, which makes 
wealth the basis of distinction. It is showy, 
dazzling, gorgeous, veritably spectacular ; by all 
means see it and study it, and enjoy the show, 
if it be in you to do so. But bring away the 
meaning of it, the symbolic hint; that is the final 
fruit of your visit. 

We should note, too, before leaving, that 
Pennsylvania honors her two greatest personages. 
One is William Penn, the colonizer and the 
eponymous hero of the colony, whose name the 
State still bears in its first syllable, in its vesti- 



202 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

bule, as it were, quite as we noticed that its 
Building here was Quaker in the portico. Penn 
was a Quaker, who would make a treaty with the 
Indians, recognizing them, too, as men and 
brothers. A person of great simplicity and 
honest dealing ; his spirit may well be revered 
and build itself a little monument at the 
World's Fair. The other great Pennsylvanian is 
Benjamin Franklin, printer, and Poor Richard 
once, but now Richard is no longer poor, having 
gained riches through skill and economy. Frank- 
lin was a man of the hardest common-sense ; so 
hard was it that he became thereby ideal and 
a poet. By him, too, was done the feat of har- 
nessing electricity, the sky-leaping Pegasus, and, 
to-day, we are riding in the coach drawn b}^ Frank- 
lin's magical steed. He was a patriot, likewise, 
and is very closely connected with the Birth of 
the Nation, which Pennsylvania has especially 
taken upon herself to symbolize at the World's* 
Fair in the Flag and in the Liberty Bell. 

But Penn was an Englishman, and Franklin 
was a Yankee; Pennsylvania did not produce 
them, nor has she since brought forth any Great 
Man of the first rank, any towering, epoch- 
making genius. She has probably been more 
barren of Great Men than even New York. She 
has had men of talent always, but no world- 
compelling individual as statesman, soldier, poet, • 
preacher. Herein Massachusetts and Virginia 



STATE BUILDINGS— EAST TO WEST. 203 

outstrip her imtiieasurably. What can bo the 
cause? Let that pass at present ; the sybil of 
the ages will have to give the answer, when peo- 
ple have more time to listen than they now have 
at Chicago. 

At this point w^c shall have to move West, 
and next in order comes Ohio, represented at 
the Fair by a Building with a semi-circular por- 
tico, the whole being in the style of the Renas- 
cence, and not very characteristic of anything 
the State may be supposed to mean. Ohio was 
the first territory of the West which received the 
three great streams flowing from the three por- 
tions of the Union, Northern, Middle and South- 
ern. These three elements of population, mainly 
from New England, Pennsylvania and Virginia, 
poured into the so-called Northwestern Territory, 
and settled Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, giving to 
them ingredients from the best of the old col- 
onies. Ohio became a kind of stopping place 
for those moving westward, the stop often lasting 
for a generation when the journey was continued 
by the children of the first immigrants. 

The chief distinction of Ohio has been the fact 
that it gave birth to Grant, Sherman and also 
Sheridan — accounts vary in case of the latter — 
the three greatest generals the North produced 
during the late Civil War. Certain it is that all 
three were reared in Ohio and went to West Point 
from that State. Glory enough; yet one queries 



204 WOULD' 8 FAIR STUDIES. 

if the matter were more than a curious coincidence. 
Grant, Sherman and Sheridan can hardly be 
deemed Ohioans, in the sense that Lee and Jack- 
son were Virginians, or that Emerson and Haw- 
thorne were New Englanders. All three were 
born of parents who had migrated into the State, 
and all three left the State when they arrived at 
manhood. In fact the Western States have hard- 
ly developed distinct types of the individual, 
owing to the migratory habit chiefly, though the 
Hoosier has a more marked individuality than the 
Buckeye. 

In the yard of her State Building, Ohio has 
placed the statues of Grant, Sherman and Sheri- 
dan, along with other famous men of hers ; on a 
narrow rim they stand with their backs to a 
pillar,and they all seem on the point of stepping off. 
Indeed, the appearance is that, unless they give 
a jump, they will pitch off, head foremost, to the 
earth. Very uncomfortable does the sympathiz- 
ing spectator feel for these great men, with the 
toes of their boots extending over the precipice; 
why has Ohio put them in such a ticklish position ? 
Is it to show that they all leaped away from her 
as soon as they had a fair chance? Certainly, in 
these pieces of statuary they are ready to spring ; 
indeed, they cannot help themselves. 

Indiana, to which we next pass in this west- 
ward migration, has erected a State Building 
which is comfortable, but not extravagant ; the 



STATE BUILDINGS — EAST TO WEST. 205 

architecture resembles more that of a domestic, 
than of a public, edific^e. A large fire-place 
greets you at the entrance, and gives forth the 
impression of a home ; the family and the guests 
can find room enough around the spacious hearth, 
which hears many a tale of the early settlement 
and of the recent war. It is the house of the 
Indiana farmer — not lavish, but thrifty; careful 
of too great expense, yet by no means averse to 
certain little comforts. Indiana is still agricult- 
ural ; it has no large cities, no developed urban 
life; its thriving capital is hardly more than an 
over-grown village. The State lies diagonally 
between two cities, both of which are just out- 
side of its border — Chicago and Cincinnati — 
each near enough for convenience, yet far 
enough off to be out of the way. Thus, Indiana 
is as yet substantially, free of that toughest ques- 
tion in American politics, municipal government. 
A transfigured farm-house we may call the 
Indiana State Building, with various architectural 
adornments added, as towers, Gothicized win- 
dows, sculptured reliefs of early frontier life. 
The portico is open, high and inviting; Indiana 
is hospitable. 

When we go up stairs and enter the large par- 
lor or main room, a surprise awaits us. In the 
center is a book-case, and in the book-case are 
gathered the works of Indiana authors. She is, 
then, proud of her literary men, prouder of them 



206 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

than of any thing else, for she puts them into 
the most prominent place in the principal room 
of her. Building, to be seen of everybody. No 
other State has shown such preference for her 
writers; the German Building alone lays as 
much stress upon the written word, and Germany 
is book-maker to the world. Who would have 
thought that of Hoosierdom ? 

One naturally asks : Is the fact typical, or is 
it some chance caprice? Two Indiana authors, 
Wallace and Riley, have been placed by the pub- 
lic in the first rank of American writers ; they 
are probably the first literary men of the present 
decade. The Atlantic seaboard would, it is 
likely, contest this statement, and the fact can- 
not be definitely settled. It is true that these 
Indiana authors belong not to the first class, or 
even to the second class of greatness ; but in the 
present pygmaean condition of American litera- 
ture, they are veritable giants. So let the Hoosier 
put his book-case of State authors into the heart 
of his living-room, and crow. 

Another fact in the same line may be noted — 
it is the strength of the educational spirit of 
Indiana. Those of us who have had opportuni- 
ties of knowing and comparing the school -work 
of the three Central States of the West, and who 
are free enough from local prejudice to see 
clearly, have been aware that Indiana is forging 
ahead of both Ohio and Illinois in the matter of 



STATE BUILDINGS — EAST TO WEST. 207 

education. Undoubtedly the latter are at work 
too, but the Hoosier is in the lead, and is now 
educating himself with tremendous energy and 
earnestness, whereof the results are already 
beginning to appear. We maintain, therefore, 
that the book-case in the center of the large 
room at the Indiana State Building is not an 
accident, but is truly a symbol, a genuine 
utterance of the spirit of the State in this 
matter. 

Crossing the Indiana border, we come to Illi- 
nois, the hostess of this World's Fair, who has 
rightly insisted upon putting her spacious State 
Building in front of all others, and in line with 
the vast edifices of the Universal Exposition. 
Chicago is in Illinois, let it not be forgotten, and 
Chicago is now making herself the American 
world-city ; let the high Dome be erected, the 
highest on the grounds, over the residence of the 
State, and challenge comparison even with that of 
the Nation, just yonder across the lagoon. Much 
criticism has been spent upon the lofty aspiring 
Dome of the Illinois Building, it has become 
almost popular to condemn it, both for ugliness 
and impudence. But the censure is largely an 
echo, started no doubt in certain architectural 
circles and continued in newspapers, from which 
it vibrates through many empty heads by sheer 
impact from the outside. 

Not much can we say of Illinois at present ; 



208 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

already she has been often mentioned, and we 
shall have to speak of her again. More than 
any other State she lies along the banks of the 
great River running North and South and bind- 
ing together the two diverse zones of the Union. 
As we are now in the migratory mood, we shall 
cross the Mississippi, and move forward till we 
reach that State which has the best right to be 
called the geographical center of the country. 

This is Kansas, which has erected a prominent 
State Building at the Fair, and has exhibited 
herself in it as no other State has succeeded in 
doing. The edifice has an oriental cast, with a 
low dome, and with a tower and peeping windows 
suggesting somewhat a minaret or mosque. Not 
a very happy architectural idea, according to our 
judgment; for Kansas is about the most occi- 
dental in spirit of all the States in the Union. 
But let this pass and enter the interior, where a 
racy, but very significant spectacle greets us. 

We go straight forward to a railing in which 
is placed the grand Kansas menagerie of wild 
animals, in attitudes characteristic to a supreme 
degree. In the foreground are the fighters, all 
quarreling, either in the act of war or getting 
ready for it. Mark the groups : (1) two Rocky 
Mountain Lions, the largest and most savage of 
the tribe of wikl beasts on the western continent, 
have a meeting over the dead body of a deer 
just slain by one of them ; but the other lion 



STATE BVILDINGS-^EAST TO WEST. 209 

approaches, puts his paw on the deer's foot, and 
sets his teeth for the struggle. ** It is mine," 
he says, ** or a tight." (2) Just back of this 
first scene is a group of huge wolves, growling, 
howling, grinning, with one of them in complete 
possession of the carcass of a buffalo. (3) 
Near these last are two. little coyotes, little wol- 
fish devils, tussling over a bone; one has one 
end of it in its mouth, the other has the other 
end, and so they pull and jerk in opposite direc- 
tions each trying to get possession of the bone. 
(4) The herbivorous animals also share in this 
contest ; two huge moose have locked horns and 
are settling their dispute quite in human fashion, 
specially as that fashion rules in Kansas. Then 
what a mass of wolves, foxes, panthers, spotted 
ocelots, black wolverines, all barking, showing 
their teeth, trying to start a rumpus of some 
kind ! 

Such is the foreground of the Kansas menag- 
erie — the beasts of prey in a desperate struggle 
over various bones of contention. Now look into 
the background, where you see high mountains, 
evidently the Rockies, with the more peaceable 
animals, as the sheep, the goat and the deer; 
they are perched in lofty places, out of danger, 
and gaze downward into the plain, where the 
carnivorous battle is taking place. Yet, even up 
there, we behold a bear crawling out of his hole 
and evidently intending to do some work. But 

14 



210 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

these Rockies, with their peaceful summits, are 
beyond the borders of Kansas. 

All this is portrayed with a directness and 
realism, which, though rude, is very refreshing. 
The dead leaves lie around, the earth is pawed up 
and dug out into holes for animals, the hollow 
trunk and the rotten log are here as in the for- 
est. A picture it is, of its kind a work of art, 
which for vigor, forthrightness and sincerity, 
coupled with grim humor, stands unsurpassed by 
any in the Art Building. A true Kansas man, 
seeing it, beholds an image of himself, or of 
some large fragment of himself ; to him it is no 
artistic affectation, but the reality of his life. 

For Kansas is a fighter ; she was born fighting 
and in the midst of a fight, and she still has the 
crimson birthmark in her face. The bloody 
struggle between North and South opens on her 
soil, and has there its preliminary skirmish. 
Long had it been deferred and had continued to 
intensify ; the Ohio river separated the combat- 
ants by a natural boundary, till they reached the 
Mississippi; beyond the Mississippi, the Missouri 
compromise held them asunder for a time; but 
beyond Missouri, the two streams came together 
with a mighty rush of opposition, and the day of 
settlement could no longer be put off. Each side 
knew the situation and sent its chosen champions 
to the scene. 

Thus Kansas, by a process of natural selection, 



STATE BUILDINGS — EAST TO WEST. 211 

was peopled by fighters. In the North, every 
intense man, who had principle in his heart and 
blood in his eye, felt himself called to shoulder 
his gun and go to Kansas in the years 
1854-60. Did not the Puritan preacher sub- 
scribe a Sharpe's rifle and send the fighting 
brother of his congregation to carry it to 
the then Far-West, to be used in the 
service of the Lord? John Brown — Kan- 
sas has not forgotten him ; his restless soul 
is still marching on in that State, and the 
war is not yet over. What a long desperate 
battle — with border ruffians first, then with 
rebels and guerillas, then with drouth and grass- 
, hoppers ! And now, having nobody else or 
nothing else to fight, the Kansans seem to have 
resolved that they must fight one another. 
County seat wars, in which neighboring towns 
have a reciprocal fusillade, appear too trifling a 
matter ; just last spring (1893) the people out 
there seemed bent on having a State war, in 
which muskets and cannon made their appear- 
ance, and they conquered their Governor, some- 
what as France is said to have once conquered 
its King. 

But Kansas has another side, the ideal one; 
she believes in education and advancement, she 
is the very home of progress. This phase we 
can also find in her Building; up stairs she tells 
to the world what she is doing for her spiritual 



212 WOBLD'8 FAIR STUDIES. 

betterment,, The latest idea ti^kes root in Kan- 
sas, though it be not always practicable, or even 
a good idea; often the phantast, the hobby-rider, 
the quack find a congenial soil there and flower 
forth with astonishing prosperity. Several pic- 
tures of John Brown one sees in her Buildino^ — 
he is her typical man, with both her traits in 
him — a fantastic idealist and a ready smiter. 
Yet in his very failure he was a forerunner and a 
prophet : he had the idea in his soul, as we all now 
see, though fermenting in the wildest fashion. 
Kansas is still striking out boldly in new direc- 
tions — Woman's Suffrage, Prohibition, not to 
speak of that ideal money of hers, to be made by 
some magic process, and of many vague dreams 
of a new social order, in which all men and 
women are at last to be equal. Even her phy- 
sical aspect suggests a dead level of equality, 
being that of a vast plain, without mountains or 
marshes, and with very little forest — about five 
per cent, of the total area, it is said. 

Another exhibit here should be noted — the 
miniature railroad, which runs around the rotunda 
with a petty clatter of wheels, and hints how 
Kansas is connected with the rest of the world, 
and, in fact, with herself. Herein her progress 
has been marvelous ; in 1864 she had 40 miles of 
railroad, in 1893 she has about 9,000 miles. Thus 
she triumphs over her vast prairies and lives 
next door to all mankind, for the railroad uni- 



STATE BUILDINGS^ EAST TO WEST 213 

versalizes each strip of territory through which 
it passes. Still, she cannot help fighting the 
railroad, for fight she must. 

Kansas is not only the geographical centre of 
the Union — she is its historical pivot for the 
late war. In 1854 the repeal of the Missouri com- 
promise brought on the contest, which was 
not ended till 1865. Kansas thus had eleven 
years of war, and was not content, while the rest 
of the States had four years, and at the end 
thereof were fully satisfied. The fighting record 
of Kansas during these four years is unique. 
She sent into the field more volunteers than she 
had voters. She enlisted more soldiers in pro- 
portion to her population than any other State; 
she never gave a bounty or resorted to a con- 
scription. Sixty-one out of every thousand of 
her soldiers were killed in battle, a proportion 
which exceeds by far that of any other State o 
There can hardly be a doubt that her soldiery 
was the most relentless of either army. North or 
South. Usually where Kansas men had control, 
quarter was neither given nor asked for — fire 
and sword spared neither guilty nor innocent. 
They meant the war to be a complete cleaning 
out, and a beginning over again. They entered 
the South, and particularly Missouri, somewhat 
as the Israelites entered Canaan, intending to 
finish the business for once and for all, or get 
finished themselves in the doing of it. 



214 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

Some such fighting intensity of character we 
may well read in this exhibit of Kansas, the most 
realistic picture at the Fair. The old generation 
is passing away, but the new one is keeping up 
the fame of the State, whose central locality 
makes it the turning point, the very hub, of the 
United States. The center of population is 
moving thitherward, but will hardly get there 
during the present order of things. Nor must 
we forget the ideal of progress which lies deep 
in the soul of Kansas, though often shooting 
forth into mad phantasmagoric dreams. One 
thing is certain: Kansas, during her short period 
of existence, has developed a stronger indi- 
viduality than any other Western State, and, if 
she keeps on at this rate, she may yet bring up 
among the stars, andliterally fulfill her motto: 
Ad astra per aspera . 

From the plains of Kansas we pass to the 
mountains, which also are parceled into States. 
Of these we shall select Idaho, on account of its 
State Building, which is original in idea, and to 
us very attractive. A transfigured log cabin of 
the frontiersman we may call it, raised to three 
stories, and given a grandiose turn in all its 
rooms, which strangely blend the spirit of a 
palace with that of the backwoods. An arched 
doorway of untrimmed cobble stone greets 
the visitor with a rough and ready hospitality ; 
let him not brush too close, however, else 



STATE BUILDINGS — EAST TO WEST. 215 

he will get a scr.atch or a bruise. Everywhere he 
will note trophies of frontier life; the hunter 
comes out strong in the decoration of this cabin, 
yet tinged with modern civilization, even with 
modern luxury. Observe that there are no por- 
ticos on the first floor, as in so many of these 
State Buildings ; they appear in the second and 
third story, where they stand out in delightful 
freedom. The frontiersman's visitors might 
come from the neighboring woods, hence the first 
floor is a kind of fortress on the outside, defensi- 
ble and repellent; when he wished to sit down, 
putting his gun in a corner, and to take a quiet 
look upon the world as he smoked his pipe, he 
went to the second story, which gave him pro- 
tection. Many cosy little nooks and corners 
with their board seats invite the guest to take a 
short rest ; the overhanging roof and eaves seem 
to reach out and raise a kind of umbrella above 
the head for protection against sun and rain. 
Small windows with plain white curtains, speak 
of ancient simplicity ; a large platform open to 
the sky and extending outwards from the third 
floor, suggests the place for an old-fashioned 
country dance. 

There is certainly a charm about the Idaho 
House which no other State Building possesses. 
None of us are far removed from frontier life, it 
is still in us all to a certain extent ; we remember 
the time when we lived in a log cabin, for awhile 



216 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

at least. There is a delicious flavor of primitive 
ways and days hovering around these rafters 
everywhere visible, and over the fire-place of the 
olden time with its chimney and mantel. The 
building is a lyrical outburst of a genuine Ameri- 
can experience, and we feel a native freshness in 
the thought and in the w^ork. 

Another reason : the Idaho House is in striking 
contrast with the classic lines, which dominate 
the forms of nearly all of the State Buildings, 
and indeed of the whole Fair. The visitor gen- 
erally reaches the Idaho House after having 
grappled with acres of Greek architecture ; he 
wants some relief from its authority, even from 
its perfection. That relief he feels here in this 
autochthonous structure of wood, modeled after 
the home in which his fathers lived. It is true 
that the Swiss cottage may have furnished sug- 
gestions to the builder, or even have given the 
model. If such be the case, certain phases of 
Swiss and American life have found a common 
architectural utterance. Here we feel like 
children playing once more; but we must leave 
childhood and the Idaho House, and move 
forward to the next stage of our journey. 

This is the Pacific coast, of which California is 
the leading state. For her Building at the 
World's Fair she has taken a kind of Spanish 
ecclesiastical style, which was employed by the 
Catholic Missions in that country at an early 



STATE BUILDINGS— EAST TO WEST. 217 

date. Thus the Pacific coast will remind us that 
it, too, has a streak of age as well as the Athin- 
tic coast, and it gratefully recalls the old Spanish 
monk and his attempt to Christianize the savage. 

The structure is very interesting by way of 
contrast. It throws an element into these State 
Buildings which is, to a certain extent, foreign to 
the American spirit. Compare it with the free, 
open houses around it, turned outward to the 
world and seeking some harmony with the same. 
But this California Building has a closed, intro- 
verted look. It rather distrusts everything which 
is not within its walls. Not exactly a fortress, 
it is a cloister fortified against nature. It is truly 
the home of the monk, who fights his own flesh 
as the great original sin, and looks upon the 
world as the abode of the devil. By its architec- 
ture we would expect to find, when we enter it, 
a crucifix and a priest swinging a censer, or at 
least some kind of fasting, together with a rigid 
suppression of the body's appetites. Let us 
peep in and get a glimpse of this lean monastic 
life, so forbidding to those who love the good 
things of earth. 

Could there be a ^more complete surprise? 
Within this penitential cloister are found all the 
luscious fruits of California, far surpassing those 
of the fabled garden of Hesperides. Row upon 
row, pyramids, almost mountains of fruit, pre- 
served in jars and piled up fresh ; dates, figs, 



218 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

oranges, grapes, pears and apples, of endless 
variety and of monstrous size ; what a temptation 
to lay hold and eat ! Something good to drink is 
also visible, yea, obtainable, specially the Cali- 
fornia wines ; a seductive display of long bottles 
filled with divine nectar, brings back the time of 
the happy gods who once ruled and drank on 
Olympus. Such has the old gloomy cloister be- 
come in the hands of the humorous Californi- 
ans, for this whole thing must be a piece of Cal- 
ifornia humor. Clearly two deities are enthroned 
here. Gustation and Potation, having taken pos- 
session of the very house of Abstinence. Nor 
must we forget that in the center, under the 
sacred dome itself, stands not an altar, but a 
date-palm. 

The love of good eating and drinking is, then, 
the sort of monasticism inculcated in this Build- 
ing, a sort not wholly unknown to the old monks, 
if reports be true. But even a stronger appetite 
is appealed to here ; California is the land of 
gold ; behold the yellow metal in every alluring 
form ogling the eager spectator out of the show- 
cases; watch, too, how this golden display al- 
ways attracts a nervous, wistful crowd, some of 
whom seem ready to clutch. A touch of the gold 
fever, which once raged over the whole land, 
may still be noticed here in certain faces by a 
careful diagnosis. It is again the old story — 
auri sacra fames; cupidity is yet mightier than 



STATE BUILDINGS— EAST TO WEST. 219 

gulositj, and this is not the first time that it has 
demonized the cloister. 

But we have to bring our western trip to a 
close; let us conclude it with a California ban- 
quet, at which, if one is not happy, it is not for 
want of something to eat and drink. Let us 
ascend to the top of the Building, where is the 
Olympus of the Pacific Coast, with its most 
delicious nectar ready to be served at the tables 
of the gods by Ganymede or other cup-bearer. 
Favored mortals also can partake. So we shall 
wind up our journey with an Olympian feast. 

But hark ! there is a discord at the feast ; John 
Chinaman appears, and the whole California 
House fiills into a fit bordering on rabies at the 
very sight of him, shouting in savage wrath. 
Put him out. What does it mean? The 
extreme Occident has touched the extreme 
Orient, and mighty is the clash' of the spirit. 
Apparently some new step in the World's 
History is henceforth to be taken; the Aryan 
race sweeping westward for thirty, forty, even 
fifty centuries, has come to its limit on the Paci- 
fic coast, has met a small Mongolian outpost 
there and has exchanoed shots with strano;est 
results. Indigestible Mongolians by the few 
thousands — what will they be by the hundred 
millions? All Arya, having overrun Central and 
Western Asia, Europe, America, has to halt in 
its Occidental career at California, and ask itself. 
Whither next? 



FOREIGN BUILDING 8, 

We have already noted in a general way the 
group of Buildings at the northern end of the 
Fair grounds, and have sought to get some hint 
of their meaning. Here the individual nation 
gives token o'f its existence by erecting its own 
separate home, where its people may assemble, 
and find themselves in their own abode on a 
foreign soil. Thus the principle is nationality, 
which is first represented by a house, and then 
proceeds to realize itself in other things. The 
architecture of this portion of the Fair will, 
accordingly, show some national characteristic, 
if the style be successfully chosen, and the 
building be faithfully constructed. 

It was also observed that there are two grand 
divisions of these structures, domestic and for- 
eign. The former have be6n already considered; 
(220) 



FOBEIGN BUILDINGS. 221 

it remains to say a few words about the latter. 
Here again we shall have to make a selection. 
In general, the Spanish-American republics have 
shown their Latin origin in art and culture by 
their reproduction of classic forms modified by 
the renascence of Southern Europe. The Orient, 
too, has given an architectural definition of itself 
in various shapes from Jap:in to Turkey. We 
shall take a few examples which lie nearest to 
our country, and consider them in a brief 
summary. 

The American, in spite of his independence, 
is inclined to ask at the start, What is the mother 
country doing? Well, England has built a hoUv«?e 
here which is certainly English. In the first 
place it is the most insular spot on the grounds, 
it is cut off from all the other buildings by the 
avenue in front, and lies on a little projection of 
land washed by the lake. It has the appearance 
of being all to itself, and of warning off any 
intrusion. It alone of these structures has its 
back to the water and looks toward the land, 
toward the continent on which the rest of man- 
kind is movinsj and acting. Doubtless to the 
rear there is a beautiful view lakewards from 
window or portico, but that is a private matter. 
Thus the Englishman jealously guards his island 
home and sallies forth to take his share — and it 
is always the lion's, nay, the British Lion's 
share — of the rest of the world. 



222 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

The Building is said to be patterned after the 
English manor-house of the time of Henry VIII. 
Thus let the American cousin be reminded of the 
respect due to age, a matter which he is some- 
times apt to forget, especially at Chicago, the 
youngest and most defiant of these new-born 
cities of the West. Blood, too, is in the Build- 
ing, a kind of aristocratic exclusiveness. Our 
experience is that this house was more frequently 
closed to the public than any other at the Ex- 
position. Why should the rabble be permitted 
to trample the grounds, and. even to enter the 
apartments, of an English gentleman? Once in a 
while the thing had to be endured at the Fair, 
and people were allowed to use the front door; 
but we could never see the whole house, never 
were able to get up stairs on account of the for- 
bidding notice backed by lock and key. All of 
which we set down, not by way of complaint, 
but as typical, as something which could not be 
otherwise under the circumstances. England or 
the English Commissioner chose to present that 
phase of his people, and he succeeded. 

Still we cannot believe that England has built 
her greatness into her House at the Fair, but 
rather her littleness, her insularity, her snobbery. 
No hint is found of what she has done for man- 
kind, no suggestion of her free institutions which 
are organizing the whole political world of 
Europe and America to-day, nothing which re- 



FOREIGN BUILDINGS. 223 

calls her wonderful literature, nothing which 
brings to mind her world-commerce. Why did 
she neglect her opportunity, and build this little 
rural cabin? But now for the sake of contrast- 
ing her with a Nation that did seize its opportu- 
nity and use it with gigantic energy, we shall 
cross the street and look at the German House, 
overtopping in many ways all the other National 
Buildings. 

There can be no doubt that the German paind 
has built for itself a very noble and appropriate 
abode at the Fair. The architecture has a com- 
mingled tone of many ages, yet harmonious, 
orchestral. There is the Romanesque, with a 
turn to the Gothic in the chapel, which recalls 
the Cologne Cathedral; into both Romanesque 
and Gothic the Renascence plays with its modi- 
fied classic forms. The history of architecture, 
specially of German architecture, can be read in 
the construction of these walls. 

Then there is the decoration, outside and in- 
side, a marvel of beauty and deep Teutonic sug- 
gestiveness. Coats of arms, arabesques, say- 
ings in old German letters, with colors bright and 
dark, lure the eye; knight and lady, with war 
and song, spring out of flowers ; monsters of 
the North with its fairy lore weave through this 
typical palace of German art. The world of 
Teutonic fancy, with its strange mysticism, its 
weird shapes, its wild romanticism, enters the 



224 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

soul of the beholder at the first view. Truly a 
great artistic triumph. 

But what has the German selected to put into 
his House? Books, books everywhere; he is 
book-maker to the worM, and well does he know 
it. Intelligence is installed as the Goddess of 
his temple, and she reveals herself not by dim 
spoken oracles now, but b}^ the printed page, 
whose sibylline leaves are here thrown open to 
evei;y man who can read. It is the most sym- 
bolic thing in this House of symbols, that the 
book is enthroned, we might almost say, apotheo- 
sized. No other Nation, no other State (except 
Indiana) has assigned such a prominent place to 
men of letters. One may well read the intel- 
lectual pre-eminence of Germany in the fact. 
A little investigation will show how universal in 
scope these books are, since they touch quite 
every phase of human investigation. The result 
is, the German House is the most tempting place 
on the grounds for the man of learning. Art is 
present too, reproduced in many forms; but the 
main modern implement of intelligence, the 
printed page, has here its due recognition by 
those who employ it best. 

The Building, therefore, prochiims that the 
German is the scholar of the world. But he is 
something else ; one has but to go to the Liberal 
Arts Buildino: in order to note that he is the 
soldier of the age. Behold these gates of iron 



FOBEIGN BUILDINGS. 225 

which enclose Germany's exhibit ; no other 
Nation has a right to them, at least so good a 
right. What a suggestion of strength ! The 
old Teutonic God Thor again rises with his ham- 
mer, and mightily hammers out these shapes of 
flower, stem, leaf. An iron flower decorates the 
gate made to protect Germany, and the whole 
portal has been pounded into shape by German 
thews. Is not Bismark, the typical Teuton of 
to-day, called old *' Blood andiron?" Power, 
therefore, speaks out of these gates, for the pos- 
sibility of the German army lies back of them, 
and utters itself with a smitinoj enerojv. If we 
now add the Krupp cannon, the military impres- 
sion will be complete, and we can almost hear 
the victorious tread of the hosts over the Rhine 
marchino^ alons^ the shores of Lake Michiojan. 

It is now time to take a glance at the French 
National Building, which is in strong contrast 
with the German. They are not far apart, have 
a similar situation ; both have an outlook over 
the waters of the lake. The French structure is 
classic in susfijestion, belonorino; to the Renas- 
cence, and is said to be patterned after the palace 
of Versailles, where Franklin during the Revo- 
lution met the Commissioners of France. Also 
there is a room devoted to the memory of Lafa- 
yette. Thus the bond of political sympathy, 
which exists between France and America is 
appealed to with strong efl'ect. Herein lies for 

15 



226 WOBLD'S FAIB /STUDIES. 

US an interest possessed by no other foreign 
Building. 

The French House hugs the earth, the German 
mounts several stories and ends in a spire. The 
French shows its derivation from Greece and 
Rome, in ornament, column and colonnade; the 
German overwhelms its classic inheritance with 
its own character. The French is white, open, 
sunny, full of grace and joy; the German is 
more introverted, more mystical, yet flashes into 
all sorts of color outwardly ; the one is more 
under law, the other gives free rein to fancy. 
Classic tradition dominates the French construc- 
tive spirit; the German artist at his best is still 
Gothic. Yet the French people have gone for- 
ward to a self-governing republic, while the 
German people have apparently gone backward 
to medieval imperialism. Indeed the German 
House is strongly tinged with the artistic spirit 
of the Middle Ages. 

Here is the institutional fact which causes no 
little questioning. Politically the French speak 
to us Americans with great power. We are 
prodigiously interested in their republician exper- 
iment, which is also ours. We feel in a certain 
degree responsible for their present form of 
government, and we hope intensely with them 
and for them. 

Yet the German Building has more fascination, 
it touches a chord deeper than the political, it 



FOREIGN BUILDINGS. 227 

stirs the poetic, imaginative, mythical element 
which seems to go back to the old ancestral 
fairyland of the North. The ancient Teutonic 
spirit lurks in us all still, and must respond 
to such an appeal as comes to us here. This 
edifice with its decorations rouses something 
within us far back, unconscious hitherto but very 
real, and speaks to us not with a national but 
with a racial sympathy, uncovering in us strains 
of human feeling long buried beyond our own 
vision. 

Both the French and the German Buildings the 
American will take into his heart and imagina- 
tion ; he is kin to both, being in blood a com- 
posite of these two peoples, and speaking a lan- 
guage made up of French and German. That 
language shows what these two Houses show : 
an element of culture and reflection transmitted 
from classic antiquity and an element of instinct 
and nature coming down directly from the Father- 
hand. All our Anglo-Saxon development in art, 
literature, religion and philosophy has oscillated 
between the French and the German, or in more 
general terms between the Latin and the Teutonic 
elements of spirit. Even in this Fair we have 
noticed the interplay of the same two principles, 
called in art the classic and the romantic. 

It is well known that the two peoples, French 
and German, are at this moment in a state of 
deadly enmity with each other; the dualism 



228 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

above hinted has reached its last point of inten- 
sity. Into the merits of the quarrel the foreigner 
cannot enter, but in the two Houses we can see 
the two tendencies of national spirit, which led 
to struggle and war. In like manner the exhibits 
of the two nations in the Liberal Arts Building 
are very suggestive ; indeed we need not look 
inside at the display, bat simply regard the 
architectural setting of each in order to charac- 
terize the two national tendencies. Moreover it is 
very plain which of the two at this moment is 
the stronger. 

Pleasant it is to see the two Houses lying 
alongside of each other in peace, with the new 
world as mediator, fully recognizing what both 
have done for her, and claiming a line of spiritual 
descent, and even physical, from both. They 
look out upon the waters of Lake Michigan 
serenely toward the East, their common home, 
and hint the two grand lines on which culture has 
moved to its western abode. 

It is manifest that Germany has tried to put her 
best foot foremost at the Fair and has succeeded. 
Wherever we come upon any work of hers, we 
feel at once the strong national spirit, the deter- 
mination to do the great thing. She deemed 
herself shut out of the last Paris Exposition ; but 
at Chicago upon neutral ground she saw her 
chance, and seized it with an energy which has 
deeply impressed itself upon all visitors. She 



FOBEIGX BUILDINGS. 229 

has succeeded in imparting her spirit to her ex- 
hibit more completely than any other European 
nation. 

One people, however, has tried harder than 
even the German, to represent itself well at the 
Fair. Strange to say, it is an Asiatic people — 
the Japanese. We find their exhibit in the 
Liberal Arts Building, large, very attractive, and 
well-ordered. Their booth on the Midway is the 
most prominent of all the shops in that locality. 
Their display in the Art Building ranks with the 
best. Finally their temple, Hoo-den, is the gem 
of Wooded Island. Thus we meet them every- 
where, and they are doing their best. 

In fact so conspicuous is their effort that it 
calls up a question: What is the meaning of this 
desperate struggle of the Japanese here at Chi- 
caoro? In so far as we have been able to o^ive 
any answer, we shall impart the same to the 
reader. Commercial reasons have their weight, 
but are not adequate to account for the phenome- 
non ; there must be a national, perchance world- 
historical principle at work. 

The Japanese are plainly the vanguard in the 
Occidental movement toward the Orient. That 
movement has been the movement of history, of 
civilization; it has passed out of Western Asia 
to Europe, it is still passing from Europe to 
America, and it now seems to be tending toward 
Japan, which has adopted the railroad, the tele- 



230 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

graph, the school, the printing press of the 
West; in general, it has made itself the bearer 
of Occidental civilization, with its face turned 
toward the Asiatic continent. 

There it meets two antagonists, China and 
Russia. Japan in former centuries was under 
the spiritual domination of China, but it has 
broken loose from its ancient fetters, and seeks 
an alliance with the new spirit which is coming 
across the ocean. The result is a conflict along 
the borders of the Eastern Pacific, wherein we 
can read these words: The Japanese as bearers 
of the new order versus the Chinese, supporters of 
the old order. Equally certain is it that the Japa- 
nese will not affiliate with the Eastward move- 
ment of the Russian, who is his neighbor on the 
North. 

We are, therefore, inclined to read in this 
attempt of Japan the effort to put itself into line 
with the world-historical movement of the Occi- 
dent. It allies itself with the nations of the 
West, especially does it appeal to the United 
States, the country which is behind it and next 
to it in spite of, or rathe)' by means of, the 
ocean between. One cannot help noticing here 
the care with which the Japanese man explains 
that he is not a Chinaman. 

Thus Japan comes to the great congress of the 
nations, and presents her credentials. She is 
evidently preparing for an approaching struggle. 



FOBEIQN BUILDINGS, 231 

she is winning the sympathy and possibly the 
aid of the civilized world. She is distributing 
more printed books and pamphlets telling of her 
resources and pi'ogress, than any other nation at 
the Fair. All of these have one burden : See 
how I have occidentalized myself in the last 
thirty years; I am one of you. To be sure, 
Japan does not intend to surrender her individu- 
ality, she is going to remain Japan. Still, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, she has joined the 
march of Western civilization, and proposes to 
take part in the great movement of history 
around the globe. 



I. The Plaisance in General. 

It is possible that the reader may, at the 
start, ask for a guiding word to the labyrinth 
which he is enterino:. We shall ofive him a sen- 
tence, which he can refer to and ruminate upon, 
seeking to extract from it whatever may be in 
it: The Plaisance is a voyage round the World 
and down Time. 

Mighty is the confusion to the new-comer, a 
veritable Babylonian hubbub of noises with fitful 
strains of music darting through and apparently 
striving for order. But not only is sound in a 
state of primordial chaos trying to right itself; 
the architecture is a variegated mass of structures 
tumbled together out of all conditions, ages and 
nations ; human speech is giving itself utterance 

(233) 



234 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

wildly in every sort of vocable; man, physical, 
mental, moral, is exploiting himself from the 
beginning onwards, from Dahomey to Chicago. 
All is plunging through the dark toward some- 
thing ; the whole is a world desperately strug- 
gling to become. A fermentation and a churning 
of human elements which are madly striving 
to reach the goal somewhither ; what is that 
goal ? One thing only can be said of the same : 
it lies beyond their present selves. 

Unquestionably the first impression of the 
Plaisance is that of a chaotic throwing together 
and seething of many things, persons and peo- 
ples, whereof the iridescent bubbles are perpet- 
ually rising, floating, exploding in the air. 
Very diverse seems the mass, incoherent, abso- 
lutely capricious, refusing at first all order and 
organization. But the problem keeps returning; 
there is felt in this tempestuous play of discord 
some hidden harmony, some law, which continu- 
ally lures the thinking spectator to pursuit, now 
beckoning out of clouds, now diving back into 
total darkness. Something is here which will 
not permit the soul to rest in disorder; these 
frantic demons of chaos are so frantic because 
of their struggle with the powers of light ; the 
certainty of a cosmos lurks in all this self- 
destructive confusion. 

With such a faith at the start we have a 
working principle for the mastery of disorder, 



THE PLAISANCE IN GENERAL. 235 

inner and outer, our own and the world's, 
whereof the Plaisance appears just at present 
quite a large fragment. But we hold that this is 
merely an appearance, which vanishes with a 
little illumination of thought. The Plaisance is 
a spontaneous product, coming together from 
all parts of the earth and forming itself, after 
its own fashion, out of the most diverse mate- 
rials. The Plaisance was born of the travail of 
the entire orlobe seekina: to brinof forth some 
likeness of itself as it has unfolded in Space and 
Time, and thereby presenting a living epitome 
of our terrestrial home in its geography, ethnol- 
ogy, and history. 

Behold the elements setting out on their jour- 
ney, moving around the earth-ball from the 
remotest places of departure, even from anti- 
podes, marching, marching, with many a whirl 
and turn and stoppage, till at last they settle 
down together on one point, which point is just 
this Plaisance. Preceding such a movement 
was some vague plan, or some productive germ 
emanating from Chicago; on the wings of light- 
ning it was borne, and fell upon fruitful soul; 
at once busy, speculative heads were set to work 
in every portion of the globe. A man in Egypt 
started to reproduce a street in an Oriental city, 
and to fetch it hither; an imaginative Greek, liv- 
ing in the land of the Nile, conceived the idea of 
bringing a spiritual semblance of ancient Egypt 



236 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

in the temple of Luxor ; a resident of Apia pre- 
pared to show the life and character of the South 
Sea Islanders ; the wild Arabs of the desert quit 
their sandy home of thousands of years and set 
out, with their camels and horses, for another 
continent. Most marvelous is the movement, 
seen with the eye of contemplation ; Javanese, 
Japanese, Chinese, Europe, Asia, Africa, Ameri- 
ca, Polynesia, from the bunojalow of Johore 
with its tea on the other side of the earth, to the 
little town of Mount Gilead, Morrow County, 
Ohio, on this side thereof, with its cider — all 
are deeply stirred within by some common 
migratory instinct and begin to start, wending 
their way round a small or large portion of the 
terrestrial circle toward that little strip of land 
in Chicago, which is the aforesaid Plaisance. 
Very wonderful indeed is the phenomenon. 

But even more wonderful is the second fact 
which soon shoves itself into vision. This vast 
mass of widely separated and apparently incongru- 
ous elements is actually organizing itself into an 
order ; out of aworld-chaos there seems to be rising 
a world-harmony. Distracting is the din of the 
nations, each one making its own peculiar noise, 
musical or unmusical ; still there is a real con- 
cord in this common utterance of artificial 
sounds, a music universal and all-inclusive, pos- 
sibly a new music of the future, a stretch beyond 
the last Wagnerian combination of the tone- 



THE PLAISANCE IN GENERAL. 237 

world. Then speech of all kinds we hear, a Babel 
greater than the original structure on the plains 
of Shinar; yet in it is a unity which one can at 
first feel, and at last grammatically demonstrate. 
Costumes set off the human shape outwardly in 
many colors and draperies, giving to the multi- 
tude a pictorial movement; even institutions and 
religions peer forth in the Plaisance, veritably a 
miniature earth. And, as has already been inti- 
mated, not only Space, but Time also is repre- 
sented. The old ages are present by proxy; 
Egypt, mother of civilization, flashes a tiny light 
through her 6,000 years of development ; the 
history of Arabia is seen in fierce activity enact- 
inoj itself amonor the Bedouins as it was before 
the time of Mahomet, nay, before the time of 
Abraham ; the stages of prehistoric culture are 
visibly presented to the eye in living representa- 
tives from both Hemispheres. 

We may repeat, therefore, that the Plaisance 
is a voyage round the World and down Time ; it 
is a living museum of humanity, not a dead col- 
lection of curiosities.* Probably the best presen- 
tation of himself that man has ever looked upon 
is this, showing him in his totality ; a universal 
human soul is present, if we can but look 
through the outer body and commune with the 
spirit of the place. The world-man is here and 
at work, dijfferentiated, it is true, into many 
individuals of many nations; still the world- 



238 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

man is he, quite as he has come down through the 
ages and has spread out over the globe. Call 
the whole a grand temple of humanity, intricate, 
labyrinthine ; can we seize its clew in thought 
and not get lost in its mazy compartments ? 

Let us note the first external fact concern- 
ing the Plaisance : it is a strip of land about 
one mile long and 600 feet wide, through the 
middle of which runs a broad street or highway 
leading to the World's Fair, or leading out of 
the same, just as the visitor chooses. On each 
side of the street are arranged the contents of 
the Plaisance — its shows, booths, eating-houses, 
drinking places, villages, peoples. Thus it is 
like a gallery of paintings or statues; truly a 
world-gallery, which is to be viewed on both 
sides of the passage. 

It is, accordingly, in the form of an entrance 
to the Exposition proper, an avenue leading 
through many diverse peoples to this last phase 
of civilization. Let us note also that there are 
other entrances which have no Plaisance, no such 
long suggestive highway 'of human progress. 
Many people are impatient of the prolonged 
journey by which such an Exposition is attained, 
and they cut it off; but others say: We wish 
to see this wonderful work in its becoming, we 
desire to pass through its preparatory stages, or 
at least to gaze at them, as we move into or 
retire from the grand result. 



THE PLAISANCE IN GENERAL. 239 

Thus it is necessary to cast a glance at the 
multitude of people surging through the main 
street of the Plaisance. We observe at once 
that there are two streams, one going, the other 
returning, or, the one advancing, the other with- 
drawing. Advancing whither, withdrawing 
whence? Look into their faces; these, as a rule, 
show marks of struggle and weariness in the 
crowd falling back, but marks of eagerness and 
tension in the crowd pushing forward. This 
observation is not true in every case, but it is 
the rule ; two counter-currents of people we see, 
making one stream, which runs in both direc- 
tions, out of and into the fatiguing battle of 
the day. 

For the Exposition proper is a battle to which 
and from which these people are hurrying 
through the broad avenue of the Plaisance. In 
the first place, it is a battle of the mind, it 
requires a long, deep-thinking struggle for its 
mastery; it overwhelms the spectator at first on 
all sides and will bear him to certain defeat 
unless he pierces it with thought. Little wonder, 
therefore, that the spirit gets wearied in wrest- 
ling with the colossal work. In the next place 
the whole Fair resolves itself into a gigantic 
conflict, into the grand industrial battle between 
the nations. Are these not competing for the 
world's prize of excellence? France and Ger- 
many are here, in peace yet in mighty struggle, 



240 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES, 

the question now being which of the two can 
show itself the winner in this new Olympic con- 
test of the whole Earth? England also is pres- 
ent, taking a hand in this war of peaceful 
industry; Russia is beside her rival, — trying to 
show to all mankind wherein lies her superiority. 
Thus there is a battle raging through all these 
Buildings, a battle between the foremost nations 
of the world to be foremost in whatsoever is fore- 
most. Nor should we forget that the contest 
is to be decided, there are judges selected to 
determine the result and to proclaim the award 
of victory ; but a more important decision than 
theirs is that of the great public, the universal 
consensus which finally arbitrates and settles 
every claim. In all of which we observe that 
the very form of the Fair is cast into that of an 
earth-embracing contest, with decree of triumph 
to the victor. 

Now the one stream of people, those falling 
back into the Plaisance, show in their looks and 
actions that they have had enough of the big 
battle for one day. They are wearied, for they 
have to participate in the struggle even by look- 
ing at it ; they are withdrawing, they need relax- 
ation, rest, refreshment. They can still bear 
some calm, pleasant instruction, but they can 
no longer take any such tremendous dose of it as 
that offered in the main grounds ; instruction must 
now be strongly diluted with amusement in order 



THE PLAISAXCE IN GENERAL. 241 

to be palatable. Very sharp and earnest has 
been the battle of the Exposition, in which they 
have been hotly engaged for some hours ; but 
now they must take food for the body, must 
have a decided re-action from the mind's strong 
bent ; let them next behold some less intense form 
of the world's life. So this retiring stream of 
people gives character to one very important 
phase of the Plaisance, that of diversion, relaxa- 
tion, entertainment of body and mind. 

But now let as glance at the second stream, 
dashing, rushing alongside of the other, indeed 
pushing through it everywhere, with haste and 
eaoferness o-oino^ toward the battle. It has the 
look of resolution on its face, indeed a strong- 
tension knits the features of many, as if they 
were moving to storm some fortress. A few 
may loiter a moment, attracted by some barbar- 
ous freak or Oriental curiosity, but soon they 
plunge ahead with the stream, well knowing 
where lies the emphatic thing, the turning-point 
of the great contest. Men and women with 
guide-books and other helps in the hand, the 
weapons of mastery : behold them step with 
brisker pace and firmer features than those whom 
they meet retiring; yet they too will come back 
this way more slowly, for they all see that the 
Plaisance is likewise to be explored, and that 
to explore it will take a little time. Possibh^ 
they catch some fleeting notes of its elusive 

16 



242 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

harmonies, but to-day they feel that they cannot 
stop. 

Still the attentive observer will notice in this 
second stream a few persons who walk with a more 
leisurely gait than the great multitude, who at 
times halt and listen and look, who finally dart 
into some house or village along the avenue and 
disappear. Not a large number of persons ; they 
are those who have resolved to move down the 
Plaisance from the beginning and study it in the 
order of development, those who feel that here 
is a rare opportunity to march through the high- 
way of civilization, to take a voyage round the 
Earth and down Time. Here indeed is seen the 
evolution of the Great Fair, the process of its 
development, whereby it gives an account of 
itself. The aforesaid persons move slow, yet 
they go forward always ; they seem to be keep- 
ing step with the unfolding of their race, which 
they seek to look at in its earliest germs. They 
start with the least civilized tribe, and work for- 
wards, forwards, till they have embraced in their 
course the entire manifestation of humanity in 
the Plaisance. 

Such are the two sets of people here, which 
we may call the regressive and progressive sets, 
both of which combine to make the character of 
the place. Indeed the people beholding the Fair 
must always be studied along with the Fair, which 
has been called into existence for their sake; the 



THE PLAISAXCET IN GENERAL. 243 

seeing and the seen are ultimately the two sides 
of the whole Exposition. At present, however, 
we shall follow the line of the regressive streiini, 
made up of those who are falling back, those who 
have finished their part in the heavy battle of 
the day. The Plaisance is at hand to relieve and 
to restore ; it furnishes a varied entertiiiument 
which we shall now attempt to chissify under three 
heads: refreshment for the body which is tired 
and hungry, relaxation for the mind which is tense 
and jaded, then some lighter forms of instruction 
tempered with amusement. All of which indi- 
cates th:it the Plaisance is an unbending of the 
bow, a letting down of the high-strung energies 
which have been called forth by the great indus- 
trial battle. 

I. Enting and drinking must be attended to, 
and well attended to, if one wishes to come out 
victorious at the World's Fair. One hardly 
knows at first how hard he works in sight-seeing; 
it is the hardest kind of toil, indeed several 
kinds of toil combined, which one puts upon 
himself in the sheer force of his intoxicated 
spirit. Walking, talking, looking, thinking, 
with a strong nervous excitation and mighty 
upspring of the soul: it all requires bfcod, and 
blood demands nourishment. It is true that one 
can take his meal in the main grounds, but one 
begins to eat and drink in ])eace, when he re- 
laxes from his strain and sits down to dinner in 



244 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES, 

the Plaisance. No longer in the tension of the 
great struggle, one masticates better and swal- 
lows more slowly; there gets to be a pleasure 
in filling the void ; possibly the name of the 
Plaisance is derived from such pleasure. Not 
without a true sense of the fitness of things are 
all these eating-houses placed here, showing a 
great variety of food and many degrees of 
excellence. 

It hardly lies within the scope of the present 
writing to enter very profoundly into this part of 
the subject. But the architecture of these places 
deserves a passing notice as giving diversity and 
tone to the Plaisance. We see the old farm- 
house of New England, the pompous palace in 
the style of the Renascence, the finely carved 
Swiss chalet, all devoted to eating and drinking, 
which are often attuned to the music of an 
orchestra, whose notes are interpersed with the 
clatter of dishes and the clinkino: of orlasses. The 
two fine .arts, architecture and music, seem to 
have allied themselves marvelously to Gustation 
and Potation in the Plaisance ; a kinship be- 
tween them has been developed which tends at 
least to relaxation of body and happiness of mind. 

The candid investigator will taste of everything 
in the way of food and drink ; the Turkish and 
Hungarian dishes he will try with a relish ; that 
Oriental johnny-cake baked on a round oven 
heated with camel's dung he will not eschew. 



THE PLAISANCE IN GENERAL. 245 

Hot zelabiah in the street of Cairo he will swal- 
low, if he be hungry; otherwise, what is the use 
of eating? The Arab's loaf he will break and 
devour with the help of a Bedouin, in imitation of 
the hospitality of the desert. Veritably a grand 
arabesque of eating and drinking is pictured in 
living colors along the whole length of the Plais- 
ance ; one gets interested in it and keeps tasting 
and swallowing, not to satisfy hunger, but curi- 
osity. With such a sauce all goes down, inas- 
much as we are communing with the spirit of the 
nations; that spirit may also reflect itself in food 
and drink, and the true cosmopolitan cannot be 
exclusive even in his cookery. 

11. The Plaisance is also the realm of amuse- 
ment, of the mind's relaxation. Manifold are 
the diversions, most of which impart instruction 
also, though it has to slip into brain without 
the strain of thinking, by way of curiosity or 
laughter. Whimsicalities play their part here ; 
the Oriental mind is a perennial fountain of 
caprices which give some relief to the soul against 
despotic authority. Even reason is a tyrant, 
sometimes an unreasonable tyrant; but the mind 
will assert itself against all tyrannical limits, and 
leap over into absurdities just for a change from 
excessive rationality. Thus grave people turn 
children in the Plaisance, and ride the camel or 
even straddle the donkey. 

The wonders of Nature are always a healing 



246 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

balm to a mind foredone, especially when they 
direct it upward to the heights. Two large pan- 
oramas of mountain scenes transport the spectator 
beyond the dead level of the western prairie, and 
give him a welcome change of scenery. The 
volcano of Kilauea, situated on one of the 
Sandwich Islands, is a vivid picture of a colossal 
physical phenomenon, a fiery outburst of that 
inner life of the globe which yet awaits an ade- 
quate explanation. The crater with its red glare 
and the huge dragons of lava formation show the 
Titanic struggle of pent-up energies underneath 
our earth-crust. 

Of equal interest with the mighty appearance 
of Nature is the spiritual influence, the mythical 
activity which starts in the soul of man at the 
view of such a marvel. The white-robed priest 
moves to the edge of the precipice, and, standing 
with uplifted hands over the fire-lake, tries in a 
broken, tearful voice of prayer, to propitiate Pele, 
the Goddess of this infernal region, who is pre- 
paring to hurl streams of burning lava and masses 
of hot rocks upon her great enemy, the water-god 
Kamapuaa, who persists in following her even 
under the earth, wooing her and kissing her, the 
impudent deity ! The result is a grand flare-up, 
which must happen when fire and water under- 
take to kiss each other, especially such enormous 
quantities of fire and water as exist in the hot 
tropical Pacific Ocean. Pele, in her divine rage 



THE TLAISANCE nV GENERAL. 247 

for beiDg kissed, flings back her burning hair in 
the form of a glassy mist, and begins work with a 
bellowing and a vengeful uproar which involve 
sea and land. Then the priest comes to soothe 
her wounded modesty, and worship starts out of 
Nature spiritualized ; the Mythus too flowers forth 
and Art follows; behold here in front of the 
building the colossal statue of Pele, uplifting a 
huge torch, with streaming hair and flashing eyes, 
setting out, perchance, to avenge that unwar- 
ranted kiss. The Hawaian maidens, we must 
suppose, are fervent worshipers of the fire-god- 
dess Pele, and the Hawaian youths, those hand- 
some fellows whom we hear singing sweet ditties 
in the Plaisance, love-ditties seemingly, have at 
home to beware, lest they provoke a volcano by 
too devout worship and imitation of the water- 
god Kamapuaa. So we read the Mythus of Pele 
spontaneously shooting up in Hawaii, but impos- 
sible of growth in these United States. Still one 
may well take notice of Pele, her volcano, her 
legend, and her statue, and behold therein a little 
strand of human development. 

From the tropical mountain of fire, we pass to 
the other panorama representing the icy heights 
of the Alps, whose very look makes a person 
shiver on this warm day of mid-summer. There 
is no concentration here in a mythical being like 
Pele, no attempt to show these peaks as they 
have passed through the imagination of the 



248 WOULD' S FAIB STUDIES. 

people and become transfigured into fable. The 
work is a vivid image of lofty Alpine scenery, 
upon which one gazes after ascending a long 
winding way, which gives him a point of view 
level with the summits and overlooking the 
valleys. Very real is the scene, of a high order 
of merit artistically according to good judges. 
We like to conceive of it as the old Greeks did, 
under the form of a mighty battle between Giants 
and Gods, between Earth and Heaven, with the 
final victory of Zeus, who has hurled his enemies 
into murky Tartarus, and piled upon them the 
mountains. The Alpine battle has long since 
ceased, having cooled down to snow and glaciers, 
while the struggle is still going on at Kilauea, 
shifting about, unsettled, with Pele continually 
in wrath. The Alps have become civilized, yet 
one cannot help thinking of the savage possibi- 
lities of upheaval and revolution that still lie in 
this vast mass raggedly striving skyward. 

What will be the effect of such an environ- 
ment upon its people? Will this colossal world 
be transmuted into Art by the Swiss? Not at 
all ; very strange is the fact at the first glance. 
Switzerland, the home of poetic nature, has 
produced no great poet, no great artist, no 
universal genius in the creation of beautiful 
forms. Its greatest man was probably John 
Calvin, a theologian, dealing in the dry abstract 
dogmas of the church, and stripping off" the 



THE PLAISANCE IN GENERAL. 249 

picturesque element of the old faith, in obedi- 
ence to conscience. No poet, surely, was 
Calvin, but let us think that the Swiss mountains 
helped produce at a distance Goethe, who often 
saw them, and even Schiller, who never saw 
them, but who wrote Wilhelm Tell with all its 
Alpine scenery in a grand world-making fiat of 
constructive genius. 

One might suppose that the Swiss, moulded 
by their lofty far-reaching landscape, would have 
a tendency to produce the vast, the magnificent, 
the colossal. Just the "opposite; their work 
leans to the small, the minute, the microscopic ; 
they are the makers of the finest watches, of 
music-boxes, of filigree-work, of lace, of wood- 
carving. And they put a spirit into their pro- 
ducts which shows that the hand takes delight in 
its skill, that the soul is present in its labor and is 
happy, having found its true field of activity. 
We once heard a Swiss watchmaker declare that 
the wealth of Jay Gould could not tempt him to 
follow permanently any other calling, that as a 
child he could only take pleasure in playing with 
clock-work, that he must be a watchmaker or 
die. 

Wonderful is the contrast between this human 
spirit and the spirit revealed in the panorama of 
the Bernese Oberland. But when we come to look 
into the matter a little more closely, we observe 
that these Swiss mouths must be fed from the 



250 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

mountains, that the struggle for existence and 
not the view of the scenery gives bent to the 
character. The people are largely goatherds 
and shepherds; they are compelled to pay atten- 
tion to every little plot of green herbs, to every 
blade of grass struggling up through the crevices 
of the rock, for just that means life to them. 
Microscopic must such an eye and such a soul 
become, though surrounded by the grandest 
aspects of nature. Switzerland is also small, 
the magnitude of the country has something to 
do with the magnitude of its spirit, unless it 
breaks its bounds, as the English have done, and 
as the Swiss have not done. Rigid economy and 
industry, along with sterling integrity, we can see 
growing out of these mountains; liberty too 
will be born here, and will stay till the tyrant 
is able to level the Alps even with the plain. 
Here we must bid an affectionate farewell to our 
sister Republic, perched upon her mountain 
heights in the heart of Europe, small, modest, 
old ; and we may without self-exaltation contrast 
her with another Republic lying mostly in a vast 
plain over the sea, not small, not old, not mod- 
est, whose spiritual tendency is not toward the 
miniature in life and works, but toward colossal- 
ity in deeds and also in words. 

Now let us pass to our next diversion, the mak- 
ing of glass, which has always proven itself to be 
a popular amusement at an Exposition. In the 



THE PLAISANCE IN GENERAL. 251 

Plaisance two companies have erected fine build- 
ings in prominent places, one being just opposite 
to the other. Italy and America are very charac- 
teristically represented in the houses, in the work, 
and in the workmen. We are first attracted to 
the American place by skillful advertising in the 
street; we enter and find a large furnace 
(declared to be the best in the world, of course) 
in the center of a commodious room, which is 
tidy as a parlor — with workmen, clean, rapid, 
yet somewhat mechanical in movement. Many 
little booths of glassware are scattered about the 
building, with attendants spruce, neat, eager to 
sell ; the crowd is on hand and is buying all 
sorts of delicate fragile souvenirs, most of which 
1 could not put into my pocket without breaking. 
Women specially have come in great numbers, 
enticed by the marvelous glass dress of Princess 
Eulalie displayed on the street, truly a fairy- 
land wonder more marvelous than Cinderella's 
glass slipper. 

The spinning and reeling of vitreous thread as 
fine as a cobweb precede the weaving, which takes 
place on the ordinary loom ; the glass product, 
however, has a warp of silk, and the woof is com- 
posed of alternate layers of glass and silk. Not 
wholly of glass, therefore, is the fairy dress of 
the Princess. Business, business is the organiz- 
ing word of this place; one cannot help admir- 
ing the sense of order which secretly runs 



252 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

through and controls the great establishment in 
its minutest details. Nor must the man of uni- 
versal appreciation at the Fair forget to give to 
the controlling spirit of the Libbey Glass Works 
credit for a knowledge of human nature, as far 
as it lies in the horizon of trade. Note well that 
the entrance fee of ten cents is to be applied on 
purchases made in the building, and a ticket or 
due-bill is given for that sum to every person 
who enters. Show me the human being who 
will not try to save his dime at any cost. One 
soon finds out that he has to add ten cents to his 
due-bill to buy anything, even that useful article, 
a glass butterfly. What was the result to-day, 
after some little observation? Perhaps not 
a man, certainly not a woman, left the place 
without having at least a glass butterfly. Only 
one person, as far as our knowledge goes, went 
away keeping possession of his precious due-bill, 
and he consoled himself, saying; The show was 
worth a dime, anyhow. 

At once we should pass across the street and 
see the Venetian glass works by way of contrast. 
The house on the outside with its colored 
mosaics in Gothic frame-work is a happy 
reminder of sunny Italy. We go inside ; what 
a change ! The room is smoky, hot, uncomfort- 
able, strewn here and there with broken glass; 
the furnace seems old-fashioned, is not probably 
♦* the best in the world," at least it does not say 



THE PLAISANCE IN GENEBAL. 253 

so; the workmen are begrimed in their faces, and 
their clothes were not put on fresh this morning. 
But now for the other side : here is the art and 
these are the artists. Beautiful things, exquisite 
forms, fantastic shapes seem to spring out of the 
molten mass at their touch. Observe that man, 
oldest of the company, making some kind of 
a vase; what an eye for his work, what skill in 
his hand ! The feeling for color we note in all 
these people, an inborn sense of shades and tints 
peculiar to Italy, specially to Venice, home of 
Titian and Paul Veronese. You can see that the 
workman loves what he is making, he turns it 
over with care, and adds a new idea to the dragon 
which serves as a handle to the vase. Never 
before has he produced just such a work, and 
never wmU again, for he is not an artisan but an 
artist, he will not imitate even himself, but must 
labor creatively, bringing to light something 
unseen before and thus always surprising him- 
self first of all. 

Well, what is the result? Visitors, choked by 
the smoke and shocked by the litter on the floor, 
soon run out and see nothing. Just now some 
two dozen persistent sight-seers are gathered 
round the furnace, sneezing and coughing, while 
across the street there are comfortable hundreds ; 
twenty-five people are employed here, almost ten 
times as many are busy over the way. Yet here 
is the art and these are the artists. From Mu- 



254 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

rano they come, an island to the north of Venice 
among the lagoons, where it is said that glass 
factories have existed since the year 1261, and the 
art, transmitted from father to son, has perpetu- 
ated itself to the present time. No outsider is 
ever taken there as an apprentice, the true glass-' 
blower, like the poet, is born, not made, and he can 
be born only in Murano. Only there it is that 
sun, color, climate and sea help make the prod- 
uct, as well as the man. Yet the spirit of 
beauty loses, while the spirit of utility wins, in 
the race. O Italy ! why so great artistic sense 
yoked with so little commercial sense ! Why so 
beautiful, yet so dirty ! so picturesque, yet so 
ragged ! with the weapons of the Gods in thy 
hands, yet beaten by the sons of men ! with all 
the gifts of Heaven showered on thee, yet a 
beggar upon the face of the earth 1 Sweep out, 
wash thyself and clean up, then blow thine own 
trumpet, and thy time will yet come ! 

At this point we shall have to stop giving in 
detail these amusements of the Plaisance, lest we 
write a book before we know it, and destroy the 
reader's amusement in describing amusement. 
Many a little nook the prying visitor will poke 
his face into, sometimes to take it out again at 
once, saying to himself: Hardly worth the time 
and money. But the most colossal thing of amuse- 
ment here is the Ferris Wheel, towering up like 
a little world revolving on its own axis, and carry- 



THE PLAISANCE I.V GENEBAL. 255 

inor along in its revolutions a small humanity. 
At a distance it seems to be a vast mill-wheel 
turning the whole Plaisance, if not the whole 
Fair, witn which it is connected by some invisi- 
ble band or belt, which moves the total machinery 
of the Exposition. And have not all the people, 
and all the merchandise come hither on a wheel? 
The wagon, the railroad, the steamship in one 
way or other runs on wheels. Mighty is the 
wheel and here is its mightiest symbol. 

III. But the most important of these regressive 
movements in the Plaisance is the ethnical, the 
dropping back through the various races which 
represent stages of man's culture. Here one can 
live rearwards in time and in human development; 
he can follow the lapse of the soul down, down 
through every phase of humanity, European, 
Asiatic, African, till he reaches the animal in 
Hagenbeck's menagerie, or even the plant in the 
nursery exhibit, in both of ^vhich the lower orders 
of nature have been trained till they throw out 
gleams of their former state before the mighty 
fall of a world. Such is the Oriental view, that 
of a great original lapse from the Divine, by 
which the curse has come upon us with all its 
consequent misery. Now, as we are entermg the 
Orient, its world-view can well be followed, for 
a time at least, by the sympathetic visitor. 

Nearest to us are the various phases of Euro- 
pean and Christian peoples, represented by the 



256 WOELD'S FAIE STUDIES. 

Teuton and the Celt, in the two German and the 
two Irish villages. To these we may add the 
Laplander, a Turanian, to which race the Turk 
also belongs. With the Turk we pass out of 
Europe and Christendom into Western Asia, 
which is the great Mohammedan world, mainly 
Semitic. Observe that the center of the Plais- 
ance is Mohammedan, and that the Moslem faith 
really dominates it, as is strikingly shown even 
at a distance by mosque and minaret. From 
Western we move to Eastern Asia, in which the 
authority of Mohammed ceases, the borderland 
being Hindostan, and the chief countries being 
China and Japan, inhabited by the Mongolian 
race with another world-religion. Next we cross 
into the Indian and Pacific Oceans, where lies 
Polynesia, chief abode of Malay peoples, which 
are well represented in the Plaisance. At last 
we descend to the savage races, the African of 
Dahomey and the North American Indian, each 
of which has its place in this grand sliding-scale 
of humanity. Now we are ready to go to the 
Zoological Arena to see the ancestral monkeys, 
or enter the Street of Cairo to observe old Egypt's 
sacred crocodiles. Perchance, however, we would 
prefer to vanish into leaves and flowers, which 
also are here awaiting us, in many attractive 
shapes. 

Thus we have, in the Plaisance, fallen back 
to the beoinnins: of human culture, which finds 



THE PLAISANCE IN GENEBAL. 257 

its culmination in the Exposition proper. Un- 
doubtedly the best way of looking at these races 
is to behold them in the ascending scale, in 
the progressive movement; thus we can march 
forward with them, starting with the lowest 
specimens of humanity, and reaching continually 
upward to the highest stage. In that w^ay we 
move in harmony with the thought of evolution, 
and not with that of the lapse or fall. 

Herein the Orient differs deeply from the Occi- 
dent. There is generally in Oriental thought and 
in Oriental religion the idea of the lapse, of the 
descent of the soul from the highest to the lowest, 
even to the animal. As already stated, the mind 
of the East conceives man as a fallen being, down 
he has been hurled from Heaven by God, and has 
become what he is, a sinful spirit. This is the 
trend of the great Semitic Sin-Mythus, which we 
of the Occident have received through the He- 
brew Bible, but it seems to have been the com- 
mon property of the Orient in one form or other 
at a very early date, being found on the old 
monuments of Egypt. The West has naturally 
the reverse process m spite of inherited doctrines ; 
it believes in the rise rather than in the fall, in 
ascent more than descent ; that is, the idea of de- 
velopment is the germinal idea of the Occident. 
Its migration indicates a continued new conquest 
of the world, the triumph over the unknown; its 
civilization is one of progress, inner and outer, 
spiritual and material ; evolution is the watch- 

17 



258 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

word of its secular existence, though its religious 
belief is sprung of the Orient and bears still 
strong traces of the grand lapse, the sweep back- 
ward of the race. We have to keep and lay to 
heart this Oriental contribution to our Western 
world ; very necessary indeed is it, a great cor- 
rective of our one-sidedness and egoism. 

It is, therefore, in keeping with the Oriental 
character of the Plaisance that we drop backward 
in viewing it, once at least, that we pass through 
the grand retrogression even down to the animal, 
in spirit if not in body, and follow sympathetic- 
ally the Oriental view of the world, by plunging 
into it headforemost and living through its thou- 
sands of years for one bright autumnal day at any 
rate. A fall we may name it, from Adam, the 
most perfect man, down to the least perfect ; or 
we can call it an emanation of the Divine, getting 
less and less till it seems to go out in darkness. 
Such is the one great strand of our culture, the 
Oriental; but man is not a one-sided being, at 
least ought not to be so in the West ; he must 
also look at this race-movement in his own Occi- 
dental fashion, which is not that of a lapse, but 
of a rise, a development from the lowest to the 
highest. This development is the truest sugges- 
tion of the stream of the Plaisance as it keeps 
flowing forward to the Great Fair, into which it 
pours itself for its final fruition and attainment. 
From this point of view we shall have to study it 
once more. 



II. The Plaisance — Arabia, Mohammed, the 
Koran. 

As soon as we enter the Plaisance, whether 
we come directly to it from the outside world, 
or drop back into it from the Exposition proper, 
we are aware of a great change in our spiritual 
atmosphere; we have passed into a new environ- 
ment of the human soul, foreign to us but very 
fascinating. What is the influence which works 
upon us so strangely, so subtly, yet with so 
much reality? Can we catch it and hold it long 
enough to scan some of its fleeting, enticing, 
elusive outlines? Hard is the task to throw the 
shackles of speech over this charm and make it 
tell what it is in. downright prose ; but feeling 
and imagination, after a prolonged fit of intoxi- 
cation in the Plaisance, must at last sober off 
and settle down to the plain understanding of 
Earth, or fly up to Heaven and stay there. 

(259) 



260 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

The dominant note of the Plaisanee is Ori- 
ental. The sons of the East are there and show 
themselves at every turn to the human stream of 
the Occident, which is rolling by. Yet there are 
other elements of many diverse kinds ; there are 
the wild men of Africa and America, together 
with various sorts of entertainment bodily and 
mental. Still the prevailing tones in costume, 
color, architecture, merchandise, as well as the 
types of men, belong to the Orient. Asia has 
conquered and taken possession of a little spot 
in America, yes, in Chicago, the most Occidental 
city in all the Occident. 

But there are many Oriental peoples in the 
Plaisanee ; Asia is the home of every diversity of 
the human race. The Mongolian is here from 
China and Japan, the Malay has come from Java 
and built his bamboo village. The Persian is on 
hand, probably the oldest of Aryans, from Central 
Asia; the Turk, the conquering Tartar of Western 
Asia, has not failed to put in appearance, and to 
assert himself loudly on the highway. Each of 
these Oriental peoples gives its special tinge to 
the variegated multitude of the Plaisanee, and 
helps make it what it is ; still there is a stronger 
influence which overrides them all, and furnishes 
the ruling principle. There is a special nation 
which we soon find to have stamped its spiritual 
impress upon this part of the World's Fair to a 
greater degree than any other of the Oriental 



THE PLAISANGE — AEABIA, ETC. 261 

peoples. Arabia is the power which dominates 
the Plaisance, quite as it dominates to-day all 
of Western Asia, and intellectually rules its 
savage conqueror, the Turk. 

Arabia, therefore, we shall have to study a 
little if we wish to understand the controlling 
idea of the Plaisance, for here is certainly an 
idea which has the mastery. Behold this strange 
new life eternally welling up out of the depths 
of human character and belief; from what land 
does it spring? Another order of things we 
behold with astonishment; can it be traced? 
Yes, it goes back to the Arabian 'desert which 
has somehow got itself spiritualized, and is now 
and has been for some centuries flying round the 
World and down Time. Thus it has its sphere 
at the Universal Exposition of the Nations, 
its sphere of control, wherein it must exhibit 
itself not merely in dead merchandise, but also 
in the living energy of the spirit. The Arabian 
mind rules, though it does not absorb, this grand 
Asiatic conglomeration ; it has impressed itself 
on the whole, it has stamped the totality with its 
image, though the individual parts it has left 
free, each to manifest itself according to native 
character. Thus we witness with great wonder- 
ment a little Oriental Empire or Arabian Cali- 
phate arise and establish itself in the Plais- 
ance, exercising a new sway which we all 
gladly acknowledge for the time being, with 



262 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES, 

the hope of widening thereby our own spiritual 
vision. 

The ground of this influence can be stated in 
a few words. Arabia has produced one of the 
supremely Great Men of the world, a religious 
hero, who is to be ranked with only three or four 
other appearances of the kind on our Earth. 
That Great Man, born more than 1400 years ago 
in the Arabian peninsula, rules now the Plaisance. 
The spirit of Mohammed can be traced in these 
edifices, in these customs, above all in these hu- 
man souls. We may call him a false prophet, 
but he has been and still is a true prophet to a 
large portion of mankind, larger probably than 
the sum total of all those named Christians. 
And that spirit of his has not ceased its activity, 
it still shows itself capable of producing the 
strangest fermentations in the Oriental world. 

Mohammed united his country politically and 
founded an empire; but his secular power was 
by no means the chief fruit of his genius. The 
great fact of his career, and it is the greatest 
possible fact in the career of any mortal, is this: 
he was the author of a Bible. Ho composed one 
of the Sacred Books of the race. Perchance not 
sacred to us, but it is sacred to more than one 
hundred millions of souls to-day, being their 
guide through life and death unto eternity. 
Not sacred to me; but who am I, in the presence 
of such a fact? Moreover, Mohammed is said to 



THE PLAISANCE — AEABIA, ETC. 263 

have accomplished the work by himself, single- 
handed, as it were; the Koran is his, and his 
alone. Most wonderful and unique is the deed; 
all other Bibles were written by several hands, 
and were the product of ages; our Hebrew Bible, 
for instance, is a whole literature, which lasted 
many centuries, and is the offspring of many 
minds. But the Mohammedan Bible sprang 
from one mind, during one life-time, being the 
solitary instance of the kind in the World's His- 
tor}^ unless the work of Confucius be classed with 
that of Mohammed- A great political organizer 
of men, he founded an empire, like Julius Csesar; 
but he also wrote a Bible, which Csesar could not 
write, though a good writer in his line. The 
World's Fair, accordingly, has a section presided 
over by the spirit of the Arabian Prophet ; verses 
of his Koran may be read and heard often in the 
Plaisance, mid prayers spoken by devout lips 
which are turned toward Mecca. 

Very surprising is the phenomenon, which few 
of us have ever seen before : a believer in another 
Bible, a worshiper with a different faith from 
the Christian, pious, charitable, perchance deeply 
learned, going to church five times every day for 
prayer. What is the result? For one thing it 
sends us to the Koran on the spot; we have had 
the book and have looked into it before, by way 
of curiosity. Very hard reading was it, des- 
perately dry, incoherent, often fantastic; soon 



264 WORLD' iS FAIR STUDIES. 

we threw it aside and turned to something less 
sandy, for the Koran did seem a vast Arabian 
desert, traversable only by a Bedouin of a reader 
on the back of a camel, that unspeakable beast 
of burden, defiant of hunger and thirst, carrying 
inside its own skin a huge magazine of food and 
trickling springs of water amid the barren and 
parched wastes, unconquerable by sand and si- 
moon. But now, having seen living Arabia in the 
Plaisance, we take down the Arabian Koran 
from its dusty grave on the library shelf, and 
begin to read ; verily it is a resurrection to new 
life, resurrection of a Great Book, which begins 
to gleam and flash and fuse itself together into 
oneness and become an image and a revelation 
of the one God, in whom lies its whole faith and 
doctrine. 

And the history of Arabia with its sand clouds 
and its dusky hordes rising and overwhelming 
the rest of mankind, becomes fascinating, and in 
fact explicable to a degree ; the great movement 
of Mohammed and his people begins to assume its 
just proportions and to take its due place in the 
World's History. Often had we read about it 
before, indeed studied it, and even taught it in 
the way of professional duty; all to little pur- 
pose, we have now to confess. It was some far- 
off matter, hardly human, probably a mighty 
delusion set in motion by a cunning demonic 
man, a false prophet. Seen in the life of the 



THE PLAISANCE — ARABIA, ETC. 2Go 

Plaisance, Mohammedanism begins to be a great 
necessary link in the chain of Universal Relig- 
ion, truly a portion of the complete revelation 
of the race made by the race to the race. Sym- 
pathetically can we now study it, along with all 
other religions, even the humblest, for each is to 
be looked at in the spirit of the whole; all are 
required to make the one, unfolding in the living 
process of truth. What a bond-breaking, limit- 
cleaving hammer of Thor is this entire Fair on 
every side ! Arabia is resurrected and we are 
resurrected, too ; with new eyes, yes with a new 
soul can we henceforth look into its history. 

The population of Arabia is divided into two 
classes, which division has evidently existed from 
the earliest times; the first is the roving nomadic 
class, the herdsmen, usually called Bedouins; the 
second is the settled class fixed to one spot for the 
most part, and pursuing the vocations of a civilized 
stable life. This deep social dualism goes back 
to the physical character of the Arabian terri- 
tory ; a part of it is a desert, a vast plain of 
shifting sand, barren, arid, parched by the blazing 
sun, yet with patches of pasture and with wells 
here and there ; the other part has fertility and 
can become the abode of man, with property in 
land, order, and steady occupation. But that 
desert cannot be lorded over; if an individual 
seizes it, he has to let go his hold or perish. 
Then it rises and rolls in sand-clouds, threatening 



266 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

to bury the poor mortal who happens to pass ; 
it has, too, a poisonous wind called the simoon, 
which assassinates him who breathes it, if he 
escapes being buried alive. The desert refuses 
to be cut up into pieces of real estate; it can no 
more be individualized into landed property than 
the ocean itself, to which it bears a strange 
similitude. The home of the Bedouin is this 
floating sand-world, very uncertain in most re- 
spects ; he can have in it no 'settlement, no fixed 
possession, inasmuch as to-morrow he may have 
to flee for his life on his ship, which is the 
camel. 

The kind of a man which such a country pro- 
duces is to be seen at the World's Fair in the 
camp of the Bedouins. Thus we reach back to 
the original ^Arabian, possibly to the original 
Semitic stock. How far was Father Abraham 
removed from a Bedouin? Yet one thing is 
certain: he and his descendants did make the 
great separation from the wild rovers of the 
desert, and the result was a most iniportant 
chapter of the .World's History. The oldest 
Semitic branches seem to grow out of Arabia or 
to hover around its confines. There they divide, 
they move, they advance, they colonize, they 
reach the eastern shore of the Mediterranean 
where, as Hebrews and Phoenicians, they play a 
most significant part in mankind's drama. But 
others of the same stock are left behind in the 



THE PLAISANCE — ABABIA, ETC. 267 

desert, where they remain ages on ages the 
same, till some of them, too, make a start, and, 
taking a sudden sweep over land and sea, light 
in Chicago. We may catch in the camp of the 
Bedouins shreds of the oldest biblical History ; 
perchance it is a fragment of the pre-biblical 
world out of which the Patriarchs came. 

Let us enter the camp. There is no plain of 
burning sand, no deadly simoon, no flying 
mirage, but the men and women are here, also 
the animals. Tents are strown about the edges 
of the encampment, hardly suflScient ; barracks 
made of boards supply the want and do not 
seriously disturb the illusion. The camels first 
march over the arena with riders bobbing up and 
down ; then small donkeys with Bedouin boys 
astride trive a slisfht dash of native humor to the 
scene. The main spectacle opens, the warriors 
on their Arabian steeds shake their lances by way 
of challenge, as when they meet an enemy in 
the desert. This feat ended they take blunt 
sticks about four feet long and have a tourna- 
ment, which sometimes gets to seeming in earnest. 
They divide into two opposing sides, ride toward 
each other at a gallop and hurl the stick, which 
often hits the man or the horse. It is rough 
play, sometimes the man gets hurt; one I saw 
laid up in his tent with a swollen hand, to which 
he pointed when I passed and shook his head cry- 
ing out, No good. The game is called ** jerzed,*' 



268 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

and is very popular ; even here the unoccupied 
Arabs sit before their tents and enjoy the conflict 
and applaud every good hit, though they see the 
same thing going on all day for weeks together. 

It is a game of war ; the individual advances 
on horseback and fights his foe singly ; the per- 
sonal prowess of the combatants is the main 
thing. There is no system of tactics, no organ- 
ized movement of masses, the man and the horse 
fight pretty much on their own account. It is an 
Homeric battle with the hero mounted ; the stress 
is laid upon the individuality of the fighter, who 
is to show himself a man, not in combination 
with others, but single and alone. Here lies the 
fundamental characteristic of the Bedouin, the 
source of his virtues as well as of his vices. 

The visitor will be invited to enter the tent of 
the Sheikh or chief of the clan, where he will 
be received with hospitality and handed a cup of 
coffee, which is made before his eyes in Arab 
fashion, adding much to its flavor. A youth in 
red fez expounds the mystery thereof in broken 
English, and then explains the tent, which has a 
touch of Oriental magnificence, such as belongs 
to the desert. But while we are examining the 
various articles the tournament continues; the 
Arab youth shouts, Look out, look out. I turn 
about and see wild Bedouins riding at full speed 
directly toward the tent; one of them raises his 
stick and hurls it at his antagonist whom it 



THE PLAISANCE -^ ARABIA, ETC. 269 

misses; but here it comes flying into the tent, 
the crowd scatters and dodges, while the weapon 
strikes tlie carpeted floor and rebounds with no 
little force toward me, till it settles at my feet, 
when I pick it up, with no intention, however, 
of hitting an Arab. Not gentle sport, surely; 
the tent of the Sheikh was dangerous and had 
to be abandoned afterwards. 

Away the fellows ^ride in glory, on their 
Arabian steeds; a kind of parade they indulge 
in, conscious of their excellent horsemanship; 
why should they not show themselves off before 
these fair admirers ? O ne of the riders is dressed 
wholly in white ; as he dashes down the arena, 
the folds swell out in the breeze, and he seems a 
flying statue of Hermes, or Iris, messengers of 
the Gods in the old Greek world. But the most 
of the horsemen have many-colored garments, 
and the scene becomes a fine picturesque display, 
an animated painting of Oriental life. In fact 
the tints go deeper than mere dress, these Arab 
faces are of every shade, from the blackest dye 
of Africa, through many varieties of Asiatic 
brown and yellow, to the fair Caucasian hue of 
Europe. A great cauldon of miscegenation 
Arabia must be ; I ask one of the pale faces 
concerning these black faces: Any prejudice 
against them? No ; all are good Arabs, was the 
reply. 

But observe again the flying stick ; a man rid- 



270 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

ing at full gallop has caught it and hurls it back 
at his antagouist with great skill mid the plaudits 
of the crowd. Fighters these people must be, 
and in peace they play at war. Even the women 
are said to take a hand in the actual struggle, 
though here they keep in the background. Did 
not Mohammed's wife Ayeshah perform daring 
feats in battle ? An Amazonian element is in wild 
Arabia as in wild Dahomey ; the women step to 
the front at the critical moment. It is reported 
that the Arabs sally forth to battle round a 
maiden seated on a camel, who chants songs of 
exhortation to friends and of defiance to foes. 
But here the Bedouin maiden seems to have little 
to do ; around the camp she hobbles in big boots, 
having a forlorn appearance, peddling Turkish 
money, with a stud in her nose for an ornament; 
an ungainly slatternly creature, swathed over 
and over from head to foot in all sorts of wrap- 
pings, which dangle about her body in a most 
miscellaneous fashion ; she tattoos her chin and 
even her lips which hang down heavy in a con- 
tinual pout, and which must be very tempting to 
a Bedouin youth. The human starting-point is 
also given : a little babe five days old to-day 
excites an outburst of feelins: from all the ladies 
present, but the mother is already up and attend- 
ing to business, which is the collection of nickels 
from the sympathetic bystanders. The infant is 
bandaged around so tightly that it cannot stir 



THE PLAISANGE ^ ARABIA, ETC. 271 

hand or foot ; the mother, after giving us a peep 
at it, quickly covers its face, lest some one of 
these Christian unbelievers may strike it with his 
evil eye, and inflict upon it a curse, or even death. 

One has but to study these Bedouins for a time 
in order to see what was the problem of Moham- 
med. They lack the power of combined action, 
they are divided into clans and sets, which refuse 
subordination. They love liberty, but their 
liberty is license, not the liberty of order, of 
institutions. It is hard for them to bear gov- 
ernment, they kill rulers, chiefs, caliphs; in 
Arabia as well as in Turkey a violent death is 
always hanging over those in authority. The 
Sheikh is the chief, he is the law and the judge as 
well as the executive officer ; yet he is not always 
obeyed. In other words the Arab is the man of 
excessive individualism ; he is self-reliant, brave, 
death-defying; his desert has trained him into 
such virtue, but also he has the corresponding 
vice. The Bedouins fight one another, especi- 
ally over disputed wells and pasturage. Feuds, 
private revenges dominate their souls, not 
justice; Mohammed tried valiantly to stem this 
tendency. The lonely desert is not reduced or 
reducible to human law ; a mightier energy is 
needed. 

Herein the work of the prophet comes out 
distinct. He was to unify his country, and sub- 
ject it to some kind of order; thus he had a 



272 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

political call. Still deeper was his religious call : 
he had to throttle this individualism, special 
product of his land ; , he was to make the man, 
the Arabian man, look inward and control him- 
self and subordinate selfhood to the hiofher 
Person. The transformation of the natural man 
had to be brought about, and his submission 
to a supreme order above himself was the great 
starting-point. Look on one of these Bedouins 
and behold Mohammed's task. He seized the 
national sin by the throat, just that and nothing 
else; the battle was fought within first, and then 
without. It was no child's play, but it had to 
be done. 

Thus we must think of Mohammed when we 
'enter the camp of the Bedouins at the World's 
Fair, and we start to study his career as never 
before. Sympathetic we have to become when we 
see what he had to do. He was almost a Bedouin 
himself, he herded sheep and gathered wild ber- 
ries in his youth, being very poor, though not 
quite born in a manger. Doubtless too, wild as 
a Bedouin, idolatrist and polytheist; then he 
changed, he became a Hanif or penitent, he went 
to the wilds for prayer, not for plunder; there he 
began to have visions, ecstasies, inspirations and 
turns prophet to his people. In all this can we 
not see the Semitic consciousness working as it 
did of old among the Hebrews? 

At any rate we must praise Mohammed for 



THE PLAISANCE — AEABIA, ETC. 273 

striking at the very root of the time's evil. That 
fierce individualistic spirit of the Arab must be 
tamed into submission ; no law can do it, no man ; 
God alone can tame the wild Bedouin ; not many 
Gods can do it, only the one almighty God. 
Hence the first tenet of Mohammed is the one 
God, the one Will in the Universe, as opposed to 
many clashing Bedouin wills. The second tenet 
is Resignation, the Bedouin will must submit to 
God's Will, and therein become one and in har- 
mony with itself and with God. Under the in- 
spiration of such a doctrine all Arabia gets united 
within itself and takes fire. Political unity 
follows religious unity, which is truly the unity of 
the spirit. The scattered clans become one, all 
the fierce Arabic individualities become one, the 
whole land is a unit in the one God and in the 
resignation to His Will, which Will is to find 
utterance, and this utterance is the Prophet, who 
now has reached his genuine mission. Thus indi- 
vidualism is burned away like dry grass, the 
desert is aflame, and mighty is the conflagration, 
for the material was abounding. Behold, it 
sweeps out of the borders of Arabia, it blazes 
over all limits, and becomes a consuming fire 
which envelops the neighboring nations East and 
W^est. It leaps across into Europe and for cen- 
turies threatens Christianity, acquiring a Western 
foothold in Spain and an Eastern foothold in 
Constantinople. 

18 



274 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

Mohammed is not only a prophet, he is also a 
legislator like Moses, he is too a military leader. 
A positive side of the Divine he shows in his 
work of unity, but the negative, destructive side 
is also his, for he wields the sword of the Omnip- 
otent, and mows down the ranks of the unbe- 
liever. He has been called cruel; but more cruel 
than Moses? He cut off Semitic heads, rebel- 
lious, stiff-necked; the}^ had to be eliminated, to 
make unity ; with them in the world God was 
dualism and discord. 

In the camp of the Bedouins we may behold 
Arabia before Mohammed, and see what toughest 
refractory material he had to knead and break 
and transform. It is true that the Bedouins at 
present are Moslems, but, according to report, not 
good Moslems. They will fight for their faith of 
course, fight for anything ; but they care little 
for the fast of Ramahdin, they seldom go five 
times a day to prayers, they plunder pilgrims to 
Mecca, but go not thither themselves, though in 
the neighborhood. So there is an old remnant 
which has not really yielded. We may fancy 
that we can still see the battle of Bedr here in 
the Bedouin camp, as the horsemen advance, hurl 
their javelins, retreat, each man for himself. 
The battle of Bedr with its victory unified 
Arabia and made her conqueress of the Orient; 
but it has always to be fought over again. 
Indeed, heathenism in the form fetichism and 



THE PLAISANCE — AEABIA, ETC. 275 

Sabaism is still said to linger in the Arabian 
Peninsula. 

Already we have designated the greatest work 
of Mohammed to be his Koran or Bible. 
Thereby he has maintained his dominion, main- 
tains it to this day. The two grand doctrines 
thereof still hold captive the Oriental spirit : 
these are Omnipotence on the one hand, and 
Resisrnation on the other. It would seem that 
this twofold statement of God and of man is 
the soul's best medicine for the Oriental world. 
Very similar is the Hebrew solution in the Old 
Testament. What shall the individual do with 
himself — with his rebellions, sins, caprices? 
Then what shall he do with suffering and mis- 
fortune? Resignation, resignation is the main 
sermon of the Koran. Yet it also speaks of the 
judgment day and man's accountability. So the 
individual is not to be wholly resigned; he must 
be up and at work for his soul's salvation. 

It is manifest that the Koran will have to be 
interpreted. It has contradictions which must 
be explained; it preaches strongly predestina- 
tion, but it also strongly implies free agency. 
Thus sects will arise in the bosom of Moham- 
medanism as they have arisen elsewhere. Then 
the Koran has its Mythus, as every Bible has and 
must have; this mythical element will give no 
end of trouble. The angel dictates to Moham- 
med and he transmits the divine message to man ; 



276 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

God does not speak in person to his prophet but 
through a medium. Herewith the question of 
the verbal inspiration of the Sacred Book comes 
up and causes violent disputation ; then too the 
subject of angelic ministration has to be set 
forth. 

In other words a Mohammedan Theology rises 
out of the Koran, seeking to explain its difficult- 
ies, to harmonize its contradictions, to interpret 
its Mjthus. Quite parallel to Christian Theol- 
ogy runs the stream; in fact, the two belong 
closely together in the History of Universal 
Keligion. But this is not all; out of the 
Arabian Theology necessarily grew the Arabian 
Philosophy which went back to Greece and 
resurrected Aristotle and then handed him over 
to the Medieval Schoolman, through whom he 
came to Dante. Indeed the great Christian poet 
shows through his whole Divine Comedy the 
influence of Arabian thought. Wonderful was 
the overflow of Arabian spirit, passing into every 
noble form of utterance — Art, Science, Poetry, 
as well as Theology and Philosophy. ' Chiefly 
from the Moors of Spain came a light which 
illuminated Europe, then in darkness, and 
helped to save the world's culture. It was 
through the aid of Arabia that the bridge was 
made for Europe over the Middle Ages out of 
classic Heathendom into modern civilization. 
Thus she has her place in the movement of 



THE PLAISANCE — ARABIA, ETC. 211 

the Occident, and is a link in the chain of the 
World's History. 

Such results sprang from the work of Arabia's 
Great Man, truly a World-Hero in the highest 
sense. Looking into the camp of the Bedouins, 
we can see his beginning, his problem ; if he 
can put himself under God, and if he can then 
put these wild rovers of the desert under the 
Divine Order, taming their strong individuality 
into oneness and harmony with Godhood, the 
rest of the world will easily fall into line. Such 
an Igdrasil grew out of this barren, treeless 
sand of Arabia with Mohammed as the planter 
of its seed. Well may one tarry and see the 
battle of Bedr fouo^ht over ajjain in the Plaisance, 
for it images a great fact of Universal History, 
transmitted through the centuries and out of the 
desert in living reality to Chicago. 



III. The Platsance — Animal, Arab, Allah. 

Arabia is the home of two quadrupeds which 
have become so deeply inbred with her charac- 
ter, that they share in her spiritual traits. The 
domesticated animal, ranging within certain ter- 
ritorial bounds and trained by the hand of man 
becomes typical of its land and of its master. 
It reflects, by long ages of association and inher- 
itance, a partial human soul; it also takes lines 
which we can recognize to be national. In the 
Orient, indeed, the animal seems to stand closer 
to man than in the Occident; the doctrine of 
transmigration, repugnant to us, belongs to the 
East and finds there a stronger intimation in 
Nature than in our part of the world. Asia is 
very old, man and the animal have been a long 
time, in fact countless generations, companions 
together on the same soil. They both belong to 
it and therein are connected ; a change of couu- 
r278) 



THE PLAISANCE — ANIMAL, ETC. 279 

try l)reaks this deep intimacy, this common bond 
of earth; often the animal perishes in the new 
climate and in the new physical conditions. The 
East is stationary, the West is migratory ; it 
would seem that migration destroys transmigra- 
tion. Nearly all our domestic animals were first 
tamed by primitive man in the Orient, doubtless 
by virtue of a certain tie of fellowship and near- 
ness which has since been obscured if not wholly 
lost. 

Very interesting and suggestive is it, therefore, 
to watch the primitive man of the desert, the 
Bedouin, handling the horse and the camel, his 
two chief companions among animals. He cer- 
tainly stands in close relationship with his horse, 
and his horse with him; when he is mounted, the 
man and the animal become one in appearance 
and movement, and always suggest that signifi- 
cant Greek fable of the Centaur. As the troop 
rides before the spectator, the latter cannot help 
picking out his favorite Arabian steed, which 
shares in all the pride and display of the rider. 
It is full of fire and of fight, ready for the onset 
of the antagonist, and in its way sends out a 
challenge. Yet it is not a ferained horse, such as 
our cavalry horse, which will go through the evo- 
lutions of the re£]^iment riderless ; it is individual- 
istic, like its owner, full of independence and 
caprice, yet always eager for a contest. It is not 
a tall or a large animal ; it is smaller and not so 



280 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

strong as the average American horse of good 
quality, nor is it so swift a racer as the thorough- 
bred. It does not work in harness, it is an 
aristocratic horse, not to be ridden for use ; it is 
not to be taken for ploughing or for a journey. 
Its purpose is war, the manly games, and parade ; 
no true Arab would use it for simple travel, he 
takes his camel for that. We have been told 
that these precious steeds belong to the chiefs 
mainly, not to the common people, in whose 
possession they, being so high-born, would be 
degraded. 

The best Arabian horses are said to come from 
the province of Nejd, which lies in the heart of 
Arabia surrounded by the desert. They are not 
sold, are not objects of traffic, though they are 
given away and are captured in war. That is, 
the high-bred races have no price to the Arab 
mind, having a kind of personality. They are 
all named and recorded, from the first ancestor 
down to the present; the pedigrees of the Arab- 
ian horses in the Plaisance are said to reach back 
600 years. What American of the First Fami- 
lies, Puritan or Cavalier, can trump up such an 
ancestral list for hifhself ? Good authority de- 
clares that only half-breeds and lower sorts get 
into the markets of the world. Truly an 
aristocratic animal with his wide-spreading gene- 
alogical tree ; he would certainly become a 
plebeian in this country, for sooner or later he 



THE PLAISANCE — ANIMAL, ETC. 281 

would have to go to work to earn his oats, like 
the rest of us. Meanwhile let us admire him 
now; symmetry, endurance, spirit he has in the 
highest degree, also docility, a kind of resigna- 
tion with all his audacity ; a pretty good Moslem 
he can be, at least as good as the Bedouin. 
Very beautiful and various are the colors of these 
steeds, playing in the sunbeams like shot-silk 
with muscles dancing underneath their glossy 
skins in the very riot of a high-strung life. 
Just see them gallop and turn and rear, with a 
great jingling of their trappings ! 

But the true Arabian animal is the camel, made 
by the desert and for the desert. Note the split 
foot, padded, spreading out on the sands the 
more it is pressed; therefore it sinks not into the 
same like a horse's hoof or a human foot. Look 
into the camel's mouth : it has lower and upper 
incisor teeth, adjusted like knives in a sausage 
machine, exactly fitted for chopping up dry 
shrubs and stalks and thistles, on which it feeds 
in the desert. That slit nose is capable of being 
tightly closed against the simoon, thereby 
protecting a very acute sense of smell. 
The hunch on the camel reaches not to the spinal 
column, but is really a lump of fat, which it 
carries inside its own skin, yet on its back like 
other burdens, being a storehouse of food in 
time of need. Also a storehouse of water it 
carries in its stomach, made of water cells about 



282 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

three inches deep and three inches wide, which it 
can strain out and close by means of powerful 
sphincter muscles. Thus nature has prepared the 
camel specially for a journey through the desert. 

It is not beautiful, it looks dusky, shabby, with 
odd bunches of woolly hair hanging about; it 
seems to have been made of what was left after' 
the rest of creation. Dreamy, resigned, with 
half-closed eyes it trudges along, or rather, if we 
look at its upper part, it swims along through 
the air, with head held on a horizontal line, and 
followed by its long curved, snaky neck with 
protuberant back. Does it not look as if it had 
seen better days? There it goes, with a peculiar 
shuffle of the hind legs, causing the crupper to 
dance up and down like the rocking of a boat. 

Truly an Oriental beast is the camel, bringing 
with it to the Plaisance an Oriental atmosphere ; 
also symbolic of the East, and specially of the 
Arabian desert. Resignation is in its look and 
hints its spirit, a type of Islamism ; of all ani- 
mals it appears most submissive to the strokes of 
Fate. At a blow from its driver down it drops 
on its knees, haunches, belly, all of which are 
full of horny callosities from much hard usage, 
yet even the new-born camel is said to show the 
traces of them. In that attitude it receives its 
burden, receives the same with a grunt only, the 
sole protest, holding up its horizontal head and 
resigned eyes. Never do I see a camel kneeling 



THE PLAISANCE — ANIMAL, ETC. 283 

at the bidding of its master but I think of human 
prostration and prayer, notably that of the 
Mohammedan, who is called by the muezzin five 
times a day to supplicate Allah with kneeling 
and prostrate attitudes. This ratio will come 
flitting before the mind: as the camel to the 
Arab, so the Arab to Allah, the man being the 
mean between the extremes. 

By its submissiveness and adjustableness the 
camel conquers, conquers the desert with all its 
terrors, — ; thirst, famine, simoon, sand. It car- 
ries 500 to 1,000 pounds, going at the rate of 25 
miles a day for three days, without food or 
drink. Endurance is the victor, that resignation 
has its reward. Swifter varieties attain a speed 
of 50 miles or even 100 miles a day. Eats any- 
thing, dry twigs, dead leaves, spines; yet it loves 
good eatinoj and will die of a surfeit after long 
abstinence, if it is not looked after. It has a his- 
tory ; the Old Testament knows it, Job had 6,000 
and the Ishmaelites, who were going down to the 
land of Egypt with camels, were Arabs to whom 
Joseph was sold by his brethren. The camel 
stands alone of its class in the Eastern Hemis- 
phere; in the Western it finds a close relation 
in the llama of South America. It lives to the 
age of 40 or 50 years ; it furnishes milk, its hair 
is woven into garments, and its flesh is eaten by 
the Arabs. 

The camel is said to manifest no attachments, 



284 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES. 

no feeling for man, not even for its master. It 
is without emotion, it takes what comes, resigna- 
tion to the decree of Fate it always shows. Wliy 
should it have preferences? that can do no good 
against the decree. So the camel kneels, takes 
its burden and carries the same, with perfect 
indifference apparently. Yet one exception: it 
has the name of harborins^ malice when wrono^ed 
by its master, when the blow of Fate is not Fate 
but Injustice ; revengeful it becomes and waits for 
its opportunity. The master has to throw before 
the sulking beast some garment of his, which is 
struck and pawed, and then revenge is satisfied 
and forgotten. So even the camel is vindictive, 
and truly a Bedouin therein ; but no fellowship 
with its driver, no display of feeling, no finitude 
it shows; the boundless desert is its character, a 
desert of sand. Only revenge: therein is the 
camel mortal and finite. The desert is its true 
home ; it is said to be averse to crossing a stream, 
lest it come into a fertile land, with water and 
food, where it might have enough to eat and 
drink, but how could it show its superiority 
there ? 

Such are the two animals : the Arabian horse 
and camel, typical of Arabia and the Arab char- 
acter. Fire, energy, enthusiasm, caprice, strong 
assertion of self, individualism ; that is the horse. 
Then the contrary tendency: resignation, sub- 
mission to Fate, to Allah; so we read the camel. 



THE FLAISANCE — ANIMAL, ETC. 285 

The creatures of freedom and of necessity side by 
side: do they not belong together? They find 
their synthesis in the man, who rides both, 
masters them, yet is of them. Even the move- 
ments of the two beasts are significant: the steed 
gallops, rears, Hghts, sinks into the sand, and 
succumbs in the desert to heat, thirst, hunger, 
simoon ; the camel swims along, with that 
peculiar shufile of his hind legs, as if they were 
oars, making his back and the people on it sway 
up and down, like a boat on the billows; he will 
swim through that sea called a desert with its 
shifting sand-waves, indifferent to the stroke of 
Fate. Truly the best of the Moslems is the 
camel with his spirit of Resignation; but he 
would hardly do for Chicago. Five camels were 
reported on the sick list the other day ; evidently 
this is not a possible climate for his body or 
spirit. Attempts have been made to introduce 
the camel into some of our south-western States ; 
in Arizona a few are reported still alive and even 
thrivinof. 

But not the animals alone excite our imagina- 
tion, stirring it to call up their home in the 
desert; the riders share in the landscape and set 
forth the character of the country. The Arab 
when on the back of the camel seems at once to 
relax, to resign himself to the ups and downs of 
life, shown in the undulations of his ship of the 
desert whereon he is sitting. Observe the sway- 



286 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

ing of his body, flexible, submissive; he too is 
resigned to what comes, one with the movement 
of his beast; he appears dreamy also, having sur- 
rendered his will, his opposition to Fate; surely 
he is not more than half alive, a complete picture 
of Kesignation along with his camel. But mark 
the change ! The Arab mounts his horse, it is 
another life, he is another man ; he stiffens up, 
he becomes tense in struggle, he is ready for a 
fight against any or all, hardly Allah with Koran 
and Prophet can restrain him now. The steed 
under him stamps, rears, tosses its head, desper- 
ately trying to get out of its limits, out of its 
own glossy skin ; it protests, defies, defies Allah 
who made it and put it into such a narrow hide. 
The man and the horse become a unit in body 
and spirit, off the hybrid dashes, a desert-haunt- 
ing Centaur, ready to destroy or hospitably to 
protect, according to caprice. Thus the two 
sides of Arabia show themselves in the animal 
and in the man, and both reveal one idea. 
Now we are called to see the battle, fortun- 
ately for us only a sham battle; in the desert 
the situation would probably be very differ- 
ent. 

In these contests the spectator will soon find 
himself selecting his favorite rider and applaud- 
ing the skill of the same with a kind of hero- 
worship. Right in front of me the best horseman 
is mounted, awaiting the onset of his antagonist. 



THE PLAISANCE — ANIMAL, ETC. 287 

Inquiry calls out the statement that he is seventy- 
three years old ; yet he is the most untamed man 
of the lot. Of a sudden he puts spurs to his 
steed and dashes out; his eyes snap sparkles of 
tire, his Semitic crook-nose seems to get more 
curved, is like an eagle's beak, as he raises his 
stick and hurls it against his opponent ; he hits and 
means to hit. For him the battle is not wholly 
sport, he is transferred to his native Arabian 
desert, and has met the enem}- of the hostile clan. 
He loses or breaks his reguhar stick, and then he 
gets hold of a long heavy club resembling the 
handle of a pitchfork; with this he rides out 
against the approaching combatant. He bran- 
dishes his weapon, throws it, and strikes his 
enemy in the small of the back with a tre- 
mendous thump which sends the poor fellow to 
the hospital tent for that day. A fiery Ishmael- 
ite still, untamed, product of the desert with its 
sand-waves, which allow no human possession ; 
such was Mohammed's material, out of which he 
moulded a world-religion. I seek this man out, 
when the tug of war is over, for he seems the 
typical person ; I try to make his acquaintance, 
but he waves me away with his hand, he talks 
nothing but the dialect of his desert, and he 
knows already too many people. But the fire, 
the venizeance with which he rode was a frag- 
ment of Arabian history, a gleam out of that 
pre-Mohammedan time which lies back of and 



288 WORLD'S FAIIi STUDIES. 

sets a-going the great overflow of Islamism, 
which is not by any means yet ended. 

Thus the child of the desert, the genuine Ish- 
maelite,is seen as he was of old, to-day in Chicago. 
He still calls himself a son of Shem, as one will 
find by a little inquiry; he connects with the Old 
Testament, which contains the earliest records of 
his race. The Semitic element^comes out in the 
Bedouin with an original power and intensity ; 
the two great attempts to reduce him to order 
have produced two world-books, called Bibles, 
the Jewish and the Mohammedan. The God- 
conception dominates mightily in both, against 
which the individual is almost, 3^et not quite, 
nothing. 

The Greek world has mainly the opposite 
tendency. Its function was to rescue man from 
the Oriental God and for this cause it fought at 
Troy and Marathon, keeping the Orient out 
of Europe. Yet Greece went to the other 
extreme and lost the Divine, dissolving at last in 
its own selfishness and individualism. The Greek 
spirit in its best form still rules largely in the 
Exposition proper; but in the Plaisance it is 
Allah, who is supereminent, Allah Akbar, with 
Mohammed as his prophet. So the student is 
led to' have a desperate grapple with Allah, if he 
is going to grasp this World's Fair. 

The Allah of Mohammed is the one God, in 
whom all individuals are one, or must make 



THE PLAI SANG E — ANIMAL, ETC. 289 

themselves one by an act of Will, which is Kesig- 
nation. Thus human individuality divests itself 
of caprice, of rebellion, of discord with the 
Supreme Order. But what about Allah? He is 
the one colossal individual of the Universe, who 
has swallowed all of man's caprices in his own ; 
he is the one personal Will which does as it 
pleases, be it to do good or sometimes to do evil. 
Allah thus asserts his individuality by destroying 
individuality ; that which he refuses to man, he 
takes for himself. It is no wonder that Moham- 
med, the man, did not dare speak face to face 
with Allah ; he would have been consumed in the 
divine look as dry stubble in the furnace. 

Here then is the limit of Allah, he does not 
impart to man, not even to his prophet, what 
he himself is essentially ; he has no sonship in 
him, which takes on mortal form; he does not 
individualize himself in man, but is the pure 
Universal, destructive of the Individual, hence 
really self-destroying. 

Mohammed is the prophet, so he declares him- 
self; he is the human means of utterance, he 
places himself on a line with Adam, Abraham, 
Moses, David, Christ. He is, however, the mere 
instrument of Allah, wholly without self-asser- 
tion in the matter of divine revelation; yet on the 
other hand, he is the chosen one, chosen just by 
virtue of his powerful individuality, which in this 
way secretly asserts itself. Mohammed is the 

10 



290 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

voice of Allah, uttering the divine decree to man- 
kind; indeed what else is he but Allah, the om- 
nipotent world-judge, with the power of life and 
death over mortals for eternity? 

What now has become of that self-abnegated 
individual Mohammed? What, on the other 
hand, has become of the one all-powerful Allah? 
That fact is, they have changed places. The in- 
dividual, specially the prophet, is not lost in Allah, 
rather Allah is lost in the individual, the prophet. 

Great was the merit of Mohammed in taming 
the self-will of the wild Bedouins ; clearly his 
method holds good to-day for them and for many 
others. Still, like all systems of mere Resigna- 
tion, or the absolute suppression of the individ- 
ual, it ends in the absolute assertion of self-will, 
be it in ruler, priest or God. Thus it comes that 
absolutism in Politics, Ethics, and Religion is 
the principle of the Orient with its doctrine of 
Resignation. 

Most of the people here are Mahommedans, 
yet not all ; a Syrian talking good English tells 
me of the different faiths in the camp: Moham- 
medans, Jews, Christians, even sun-worshipers, 
old Arabic adorers of the heavenly bodies; so at 
least he says. There are a number of Christians 
in the camp, men and women, wearing the 
European dress, and speaking English, having 
learned it in the missionary schools at Beyroot 
and Damascus. My favorite is the Syrian girl 



THE PLAISANCE — ANIMAL, ETC. 291 

called Malachi, jolly, heavy-built, good-natured, 
with a long braid down her back, serving up 
lemonade and sundry crumbs of English in a 
most delightful hodge-podge, whereof her light- 
heartedness is the best ingredient. Very inter- 
esting also is the intensity of her Presbyterian- 
ism. ** You are not then a Mohammedan, are you, 
Malachi?" '*No,Iam a Presbyterian." «*Ah, 
indeed, a Christian." " No, I am a Presbyterian." 
*' You are not a Christian, but a Presbyterian? " 
'* Yes ; I went to school to the missionaries." 
Then she turned the search-light upon me : 
*'Are you a Presbyterian?" Alas! I had to 
confess that I was not. Whereat she thought 
that I was a Mohammedan, or even a heathen. 
But those missionaries had done their work well, 
it is clear ; if the above recommendation is worth 
anything, the Presbyterian Board of Missions will 
see to it that they not only keep their places, but 
that their hands be strengthened. 

But the general outlook for a speedy conver- 
sion of any large portion of the Mohammedan 
world is not encouraging. Have these people 
not their own worship, their own subtle Theol- 
ogy, their own learned Doctors of Divinity, their 
own Bible? The East resents the very idea of 
being instructed in matters of faith by the West, 
saying, "Did you not get your religion from 
us? Why come you hither? It were better for 
us to be missionaries to you, for we can still 



292 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

teach you. At any rate first take care of the 
heathen in your midst, then pay a visit to us 
when you have nothing else to do, and we shall 
give you a lesson." Thus the Orientals say and 
think, all along the line from Asia Minor to 
Japan, for we have heard them talking such 
things in Chicago. 

And there does seem to be some grand fatality 
connected with the missionary business, some 
enormous mal-adjustment of means to end which 
causes the whole work to end almost in smoke. 
In Rome stands the College De Propaganda 
Fide, an institution which has probably done 
more for the spreading of the Christian Religion 
among non-Christians than any other in the 
world, though it be a Catholic institution. In 
the shadow of this College a Methodist preacher 
from the backwoods of Missouri opened his mis- 
sion for the conversion of the Romans, belabor- 
ing them after the fashion of Peter Cartright. 
In xlthens also one will find American missiona- 
ries, though the Greeks claim that their Church 
is the true primitive Church, the mother of all 
Christendom, and scout the missionary as an 
intruder and a hypocrite. Going still further 
eastward we find Syria, which was once Chris- 
tian. Indeed the very name of Christian goes 
back to Antioch, a Syrian city. 

Yet the fact remains : Syria, after 600 years' 
trial, abandoned Christianity and accepted 



THE PLAISANCE — ANIMAL, ETC. 293 

MohammedanisiT. Many external reasons can 
be given for this surprisinor change, as gain, 
deception, the sword. Still the real ground has 
to be confessed : the Prophet of Allah has met 
the spiritual need of Syria better than the Son 
of God. For all the Orient can make little or 
nothing out of divine sonship, just here seems 
to lie the grand distinction between Orient and 
Occident. To be sure the Christians in the East 
speculated very subtly upon the Trinity and the 
relation between Father and Son, but it remained 
largely a mere cunning speculation, not a prac- 
tical living faith. One cannot help sympathiz- 
ing with the Syrians and all those living around 
the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean, when 
they said one day : Enough of this fine-drawn 
theological disputation about the Son and the 
Father, down with both Homoousianism and 
Homoiousianism, no more talk about the differ- 
ence between twee dle-dum and tweedle-dee ; let 
us have the Father alone, and be done with all 
distinction. Thus they were saying and think- 
ing, when Mohammed came along, and they fol- 
lowed ; what else could they do? Some such 
man usually appears at the right moment, and 
now for 1,200 years the Syrians have remained 
his faithful supporters. 

Still the West has no intention of giving up its 
missionary spirit, without which no right-souled 
man cares to live. For what else is there in this 



294 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

thing called life ? Do we not all say : Unless I can 
make the world a little better by living in it, I 
wish to get out of it as soon as possible? The 
question is : How shall we interpret the command, 
** Go ye into all the world? " Is it by making 
the Roman Catholic theologian a good Methodist, 
by metamorphosing Cardinal Gibbons into Sam 
Jones? Or even by transforming Mozoomdar 
after the pattern of John Calvin? Will the 
Orient ever receive the idea of divine sonship in 
that way? Alas I my Malachi, the Syrian girl, 
in her naive unconscious way has told the mis- 
sionary story: ** I am not a Christian, but a Pres- 
byterian." 



I. The Plaisance. — The Street in Cairo. 

Coming back to the Street in Cairo after four 
weeks' absence during the summer season, we 
found that the price of admission had been 
raised. A good omen of deserved prosperity it 
was for us, and gladly did we pay the additional 
nickel to get in once more. The street was still 
thronged with a happy crowd of miscellaneous 
humanity; very distinctly the public has set its 
seal of approval upon this enterprise. With 
excellent reason, we think; relaxation, humor, 
and instruction are all present in living activity. 

The life in the Street is the first fact in its 
favor; a billowy multitude is continually rolling 
and winding through its crooked passages. 
Something is going on all the time, something 
characteristic; nowhere do so many bubbles of 

"(295) 



296 WOELD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

temperament and character break out of the soul, 
show themselves for a moment, and then vanish. 
The camel trudges along the pavement with its 
Arabian driver in white shirt and red fez ; the 
black man from Soudan, the brown man, the 
white man, the tattooed man, all the mixed 
colors of the East in face, body, and costume, 
give their tints to this living picture; the 
juggler, the ballad-singer, the veiled lady, the 
masked flower-girl, the swordsman, the wedding 
procession and the birth-day festival form a 
grand orchestral medley of sounds, colors, 
costumes, customs, caprices, of which one tries 
a good while to catch the key-note, patiently 
looking, listening, thinking. 

After a time of confusion everybody will 
begin to feel an order in the apparent chaos, in 
fact an inner necessity. The Orient is taking a 
holiday in free America ; for once it has liberty 
and is enjoying the same in its own fashion. 
The strong hand of absolutism is no longer upon 
these people ; they feel a kind of release, and 
the result is caprice has broken loose and shows 
itself in a great effervescence. For the Egyptians 
themselves enjoy the frolic quite as much as the 
visitors; there can be no doubt that they are 
giving, in a certain degree, their interpretation of 
freedom. They take it, like children, as a kind 
of license, or at least as the rule of caprice. 
The Orient solves the problem of individualism 



THE PLAISANCE — THE STREET IN CAIB 0.297 

by crushing the individual; it uproots selfish- 
ness by uprooting selfhood. This Street in Cairo 
is under Anierican and not under Egyptian skies ; 
an element is thus injected into it, which really 
is dissolving its whole spiritual foundation in a 
festival of mirth and fantastic humors. To take 
one item : these American women unveiled, free, 
often alone, walking the Street in Cairo, make it 
no longer the Street in Cairo, but turn its social 
basis upside down and cause yonder minaret to 
quiver to the very top. The Mahommedan world 
here at least is going to pieces underneath the 
outer show, and the Mahommcdans are acting a 
kind of comedy, unconsciously reducing them- 
selves to an absurdity in the presence of a new 
order of things. The Oriental company is 
playing a drama not only for others, but also for 
itself. 

The Orient has the two sides : the crushing 
might of authority, unlimited, unquestioned; 
over against this absolutism lies the caprice of 
the individual, which will assert itself whenever 
it can get out of the reach of the iron hand, even 
wreathing itself around that hand when relaxed. 
The Arabic character, language and religion rule 
the Street in Cairo, making human conduct here 
a kind of wild arabesque. A bubbling over of 
the Oriental fancy in the matter of behavior we 
note, a boundless play of humors, which accords 
deeply with the work we see about us. The 



298 WOBLB'S FAIB STUDIES. 

scenes, the actions of the people, the customs are 
in harmony with all these fantastic products of 
carving, of designing, of building. The rigid 
necessities of life are overlaid with intricate 
geometric forms ; grim Fate herself appears 
often festooned from head to foot with leaves 
and tendrils and flowers. 

The countless number of little shops along 
both sides of the street is in itself a work of 
Arabic fancy, a kind of necklace in filigree 
reaching around the inclosure. No large single 
store separated into diverse departments which 
constitute a great organic unity, but many small 
repetitions of nearly the same thing, one after 
the other: what is the whole but a string of 
curious arabesques? Each booth is a copy aftei 
the one pattern, which has in the course of time 
the power of getting monotonous. 

The merchandise in the shops shows in general 
the same characteristic. The wares are a play 
of fancy for the most part, not serious nor for 
the serious ends of life. They are trinkets, 
souvenirs, pretty trifles, many of which, however, 
suggest the spirit of the place. The carved wood, 
beads, brass-work, tracery, jewelry — is it not 
all a reflection of what we behold transpiring in 
the Street? Art is an image of life, and we be- 
gin to feel the connection in these little objects 
with the living reality. Catching a breath of the 
atmosphere of Cairo we purchase a memento ; 



THE PLAISANCE — THE STREET IN CAIBO.2^9 

rightly selected, it will always recall this human 
spectacle with its masquerade of caprices. Be- 
hold yonder small vase of metal ; it is covered 
with numberless stems, tendrils, foliage inter- 
lacing in subtle curves, quite as these people 
cover the inner fact of daily life with a continu- 
ous ebullience of fantastic humors. 

The sellers of wares in the booths often show 
the same trait in their manner of dealing and in 
their cries. First in this line I must place 
Hakim, the candy-seller, a true Arabic genius. 
He has been a good deal over the world, and 
picked up a number of words from various 
tongues; these words he puts together, weaving 
them into a marvelous cry which arrests the 
attention of every passer, and which has become 
famous. Another arabesque it is, now of speech 
and intonation, which one seeks to follow and 
trace in its first elements. It is made up mainly 
of these words: Alia (hello?) bum-bum (bon 
bon), vagood (very good), gypsy (Egyptian), 
candy. Such at least is my analysis, which how- 
ever, is meaningless till Hakim joins the words 
together and intertwines them in a succession of 
skillfully modulated tones which becomes a work 
of art in its kind, truly an arabesque. Let any- 
body try to imitate the cry of Hakim, he will 
fail ; though he succeed in catching up all the 
words, the whole will lack the finish, the light 
touch of the Arabic artist. Nor can one help 



300 WORLD'S FAin S'lUDIES. 

noticing that Hakim takes great delight in his 
accomplishment, even greater delight, I think, 
than in the sale of his wares. All day long he 
repeats that one strain, as the Arabic desi<. iier 
repeats his geometric patterns on wood or gar- 
ment or vase. Hakim always has a smile for the 
crowd which stops and laughs and enjoys his 
peculiar cry, even though it buys none of his 
candy; appreciation of his gift he requites gen- 
erously with an encore. Thou too, O Hakim, art 
a symbol, placed here upon our Oriental path- 
way; in thine humble manner thou dost truly 
reflect thy world. 

Such is one instance out of many which might 
be given to show the peculiar life in this Street. 
What a contrast in general to our American way 
of doing things ! We have no absolute rule of 
government over us, and we have little or no 
place for caprice, which ^Yo hold down by law, 
and this law is ultimately made by ourselves. 
Our liberty is not our humor, but our nocossity ; 
we have freedom, that we ma}^ do the rational 
thing. Thus wc are a people almost without 
holidays and festivities, without real amusement, 
for which we go to the Orientals, or even to the 
Europeans in the Plaisance. The whole Fair is 
serious, intense, a veritable battle in many ways ; 
great is the relief to fall back into Cairo and for 
a time to get rid of the tension and earnestness of 
our Occidental world. At once the human being 



THE PLAISANCE— THE STREET IN CAIRO.SOl 

seems to change in character there, or at least to 
manifest some new traits. The outer appearance 
also changes ; even the architecture is touched 
with the spirit of the place ; classic forms with 
their strict structural meaning give way to a play 
of fancy, and man feels another side of his ex- 
istence. Caprice asserts its right to be in this 
universe of ours as well as reason, and even folly 
peeps out of a little corner in the soul of the wise 
man. 

Still there is something more than mere diver- 
sion in the present reproduction of a Street in 
Cairo. Gradually a deeper current makes itself 
felt, and into the present links the remote past, 
the very origin of civilization. We must not 
forget that Cairo is in Egypt, and that Egypt has 
given rise to the two main streams of Occidental 
cultures Greek and Hebrew. Homer points to 
Egyptian wisdom in more places than one, par- 
ticularly in his Odyssey. Menelaus visited the 
valley of the Nile before he reached home from 
Troy, and brought back the knowledge of 
Proteus, that wonderful image of evolution, 
which finds its best interpretation in the thought 
of to-day. Then the Greek sages, Pythagoras, 
Solon, Plato — did they not all draw from Egypt? 
Finally Greece conquers the land of the Nile, 
which is ruled by the Greek Ptolemies, who 
build Alexandria iind make it the center of Greek 
learning. So the Hellenic stock continues down 



302 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES, 

to the present ; any person who talks Greek will 
be understood to-day in this Street in Cairo. 

The influence of ancient Egypt upon the 
Hebrew people is still more patent. In fact the 
first grand chapter of their history is their separa- 
tion from Egypt and their setting up for them- 
selves under Moses, a reformer who certainly 
borrowed much from his Egyptain teachers. 
So the Hellenic and the Hebrew strands of our 
culture reach back to that strange people found 
in the valley of the Nile at the dawn of civiliza- 
tion. 

The Street in Cairo would manifestly be 
imperfect without some representation of old 
Egypt. Here it is, suddenly rising before us in 
the Temple of Luxor, which reaches back about 
fifteen centuries before the Christian Era, and 
calls up a vivid image of worship, of art, 
and of architecture. Two obelisks stand in 
our presence, pointing upward with an everlast- 
inoj forefinger of granite to some home bevond 
the earth. Colossal statues of seated kings 
guard the entrance of the Temple; we may 
wonder at their destiny and ours in beholding 
them under this sky. The Sphinx with her rid- 
dle, best emblem of Egypt's spiritual principle, 
bids us go in and interrogate. Ten mummies 
with hollow-eyed skeleton faces indicate at least 
the Egyptian struggle for immortality, and sug- 
gest a faith which has not been wholly lost. 



THE PLAISANCE— THE STREET IN CAIliO. 303 

Leaning against the Sphinx is a living son of 
Cairo with striped head-dress like that of the 
Sphinx ; I ask him a question, but he is a riddle 
to me and I am to him. Four attendants carry 
a gilded image of the Bull Apis on a boat-shaped 
tray ; the golden calf is this, which the Israelites 
in the wilderness fell to worshiping in their mem- 
orable discipline. The Pharaoh who oppressed 
Israel we can see mummitied in his sarcophagus, or 
rather, a waxen reproduction of him, than which 
the original cannot have been more terrible.' 
The attendants carry the golden calf inside the 
sacred Temple, moving and singing with a curi- 
ous chant, which resembles the saying of a mass 
according to the B.oman Catholic rite : wherein 
one thinks of Egypt as the great source of 
religious doctrines and ceremonies, as the mother 
of mysteries in the Greek, Jewish, and Chris- 
tian religions. 

Very appropriate are these monuments of an- 
cient Egyptian life, giving a far-off background 
in Time to the present bustle of the Street. Civi- 
lization in the valley of the Nile reaches behind 
us to 4,000 and even 5,000 B. C, according to 
some accounts. If this be so, the temple of 
Luxor is not so very old, it lies only half-way 
between now and then. 

But at the other end of the Street is the Mosque 
representing the last phase of Egyptian civili- 
zation and religion, namely the Mohammedan, 



304 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

which began with the conquest of Egypt by the 
general of Caliph Omar in 638 A. D. From 
that time to the present Egypt has had the strong 
Arabic tinge already noticed ; the ancient inhab- 
itants readily embraced Islamism, though they 
were Christians. Again the question comes up : 
What did the new faith offer to these people, 
which answered their spiritual needs better than 
Christianity? It could not have been wholly de- 
lusion and terror which produced so great and so 
lasting a change. 

Still there remain some sects in Egypt which 
call themselves Christians, particularly the Cop- 
tic. With delight one soon comes upon the fact 
that in the Street in Cairo are several persons 
who claim to be Copts. Well do we recollect the 
interest which a young lady who took our tickets 
at the entrance to the Tomb of Apis, excited by 
saying that she was neither a Mohammedan nor a 
Greek-Catholic, but a Christian Copt. She wrote 
down her first name in the diary of the visitor, 
but declined to give her family name, saying, 
*' It is not our custom." French, Italian and 
Arabic she spoke, having been educated in a 
school in Egypt. Desire for instruction she still 
showed, inasmuch as she expressed a strong wish 
to learn English ; she inquired of the pedagogue 
present how she should go about it. She pointed 
out two other Coptic girls among the attendants, 
and thus we beheld a fragment of Egypt's old 



THE PLAISANCE — THE STBEET IN CAIRO. 305 

population, for the Copts are supposed to be the 
most direct descendants of the ancient race who 
dwelt in the valley of the Nile. One will scan 
closely the faces of these people, and will think 
he can trace a resemblance between them and the 
faces painted on the monuments. 

A black fellow, a Nubian Mussulman, lights 
a candle and conducts us to the Tomb of Apis, 
the Sacred Bull, which had its own pepulchral 
chamber and was buried with great pomp. Very 
difficult is it to throw ourselves back into that 
consciousness which worships animals and 
believes in transmigration ; but old Egypt clung 
to this belief as the soul's salvation, and must 
have received from such a doctrine both hope and 
consolation. Here is also the tomb of the High 
Priest named Thi, with strange symbolic pictures 
pertaining to the Nile, the hippopotamus and the 
crocodile. Also many hieroglyphics are inter- 
spersed among the paintings, from which one 
has to turn away with a sad lack of knowledge. 
The Nubian guide was a black chatterbox, talk- 
ing by rote a little English for his purpose ; I 
asked him to read these hieroglyphics; his 
answer was *« seven times harder to learn than 
any language." Wherewith our candle went out, 
its burning material being exhausted, and we 
groped our way out of the gloomy chamber of 
the dead High Priest with its mixed society 

20 



306 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

of insects, reptiles, beasts and man, all of them 
worshipful products of old Father Nile. 

On the inside of the Temple the walls are 
covered with many paintings, secular and relig- 
ious. A Last Judgment conducted by Osiris is 
pictured before us, wherein the damned soul has 
to return to earth in the form of a pig. Can we 
not pick out the man to-day whom Osiris would 
condemn to such a punishment? Dante calls one 
of his lost spirits in the Inferno by the name of 
Ciacco, the swine. So a kind of justice, the re- 
turn of the deed to the doer, may be seen to 
gleam even out of the doctrine of transmigration. 
Animals are still used figuratively to designate the 
lower traits of man ; the old Egyptians seem to 
have taken the relationship literally and made it 
the basis of a creed. If the man is a beast in 
human form during this life, let him really be- 
come one when he sheds that form : so speaks 
Osiris from the judgment-seat. Literature has 
seized the animal shape and made it talk ; witness 
the fables of ^sop, and the epic of Reynard the 
Fox. An epic of beasts made to show their 
character by word and action, with good or bad 
outcome according to conduct, is a sort of tribunal 
of Osiris uttering its decision in a poetic way. 
But why look back to old Egypt for such a doc- 
trine? Have we not seen the Theosophists at 
Chicago trying to rehabilitate the belief in trans- 
migration with certain new touches? Truly the 



THE PLAISANCE — THE STREET IN CAIBO. 307 

Nile stream is flowing through us still, by way of 
Judea, of Greece, even of India. 

Many origins the observant eye can trace in 
this Temple of Luxor. Here is the Python, the 
great Serpent, embodiment of evil, the enemy of 
the Divine Order and of Osiris, with whom he 
has a mighty battle. The Serpent of Eden, one 
exclaims, the original Satan, transported by the 
Hebrews from Egypt, along with the grand con- 
flict in Heaven. What a line of poetry this old 
Mythus has made, reaching down to Milton and 
Pollock ! The death of Osiris is also figured 
here; so the Egyptians had that idea too, the 
idea that a God can die, must die in the great 
fight with the Destroyer. Yet he is resurrected, 
he remains not eternally dead ; wherein another 
Hebrew instance is suggested. It is the son of 
Osiris, son of the great Deity, who defeats the 
Serpent; the sonship of God along with redemp- 
tion is therein surely hinted. Egypt is the mother 
of religion and of religions ; the germinal thoughts 
of the world seem to have started in that fertile 
valley of the Nile. Yet all in a crude chaotic 
form, tumbled together in a struggling mass, not 
yet differentiated, trying mightily to become : 
such primeval wonders we behold in this Temple 
of Luxor. Even the source of the Greek column 
we may look at here ; this upright shaft with its 
capital will yet develop into the Doric Order of 
Architecture; these heavy colossal statues will 



308 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

yet relieve themselves of their excessive gravity, 
will rise and become the Olympian ideal of the 
Gods transshaped into Parian marble out of 
Egyptian granite. Thus the legend of QEdipus 
turns out true, the Hellenic soul guesses the 
sphinx-riddle of Egypt, and reveals in transparent 
forms of beauty that occult spirit clogged and 
struggling in the mud of the Nile for so many 
thousands of years. But, let it not be forgotten, 
this mud of the Nile overflowed Hellas and Judea 
and made them fertile, whereof sprang that 
wonderful harvest, the civilization of the Occi- 
dent. 

Such is Egypt's background in Time, suggest- 
ing a long stream whose sources are lost in the 
unknown past. In like manner Egypt has a 
background in Space, a vast territorial region 
extending toward the head waters of the Nile, a 
country unexplored till the present generation. 
Lying back of the historic valley of the Nile, were 
unhistoric Nubia and Soudan inhabited by Afri- 
can peoples, which from time immemorial over- 
flowed into Egypt out of the South, following 
the stream of the great River from the unknown 
to the known, from darkness to light, from black 
to white. On the monuments we see the curly- 
haired, thick-lipped, ebony-skinned race as con- 
quered and conquerors ; clearly the Negro had 
been a burning factor in Egyptian politics long 
before he had entered the American political 



THE PLAISANCE — THE STREET IN CAIRO. 309 

field. Thus the oldest and the youngest of 
nations have had to wrestle with the African 
problem, the question evidently being, How shall 
we white men civilize and assimulate this black 
man? Very interesting would it be to listen to the 
several thousand years of Egypt's experience on 
the subject. A bitter conflict of races we may 
reasonably infer from the circumstances, though 
some writers have supposed that the original 
Egyptian himself came down stream out of 
Ethiopia. 

Now the Street in Cairo has this Ethiopian 
background also, significantly placed to the rear 
in some rude shanties, and quite overshadowed 
by the Temple of Luxor. Everywhere we ob- 
serve the blackest of black skins, in native cos- 
tume, running up and down the street, taking 
care of the donkey or on other service. Accost the 
African here, and you will soon find out that he 
is no American darkey, though it seems strange 
that he cannot talk English. All shades and 
grades of colors from black to fair are observable, 
indicating that Egypt solved the African problem 
as our own South was partially solving it, namely 
by amalgamation. So Nature works, in spite of 
theory, and gets her task done, often in the most 
outlandish ways. 

Thus Africa lies in the dark background of 
Egypt, sending forth a stream of people down 
the waters of the Nile from unknown sources. 



310 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

Soudanese jugglery, Soudanese dancers in the 
costume of the savage, rude Soudanese wares can 
be seen in Cairo to-day as of old. From the be- 
ginning apparently dark Africa has poured its 
black stream of life into civilization, down the 
Nile, even over the Atlantic to America, troub- 
ling, discoloring the world elsewhere, yet mani- 
festly with some great providential purpose not 
yet fully unfolded in the Divine Order. But the 
head waters of the African stream are no longer 
covered with night; they have been surveyed and 
opened to the view of all mankind. A very sig- 
nificant event was the discovery of the sources 
of the Nile ; we may call it the chief symbolic 
event of our time, having a purport which reaches 
backwards and forwards through centuries. 

We shall now have to quit the old Egyptian 
quarter and pass along the street, looking at the 
more recent domestic abodes of Cairo. We note 
that the houses seem closed to the outside world — 
no yard, no cordial portico, no welcoming en- 
trance. There are windows and balconies, but 
they are covered with a wooden network, which 
permits the occupant to see without being seen. 
The home is the place of the woman. Oriental 
seclusion is at once suggested by this architec- 
ture; thus the life of which the harem is the 
domestic foundation has built itself a dwelling 
place jn the Street in Cairo. 

But who are these young ladies in the booths, 



THE PLAISANCE — THE STREET IN CAIBO, 311 

bright, ready to talk, unveiled, free? A word 
reveals the fact that they are American girls, 
and have education and refinement. Whence did 
they come and how did they land just here? In- 
quiry is courteously answered : they are mostly 
from Otterbein University, Franklin County, 
Ohio, having left their studies during the summer 
vacation, and engaged themselves to sell Oriental 
wares in Cairo. Nor should the other side be 
forgotten : the young men of the same school 
were not going to be left behind, they too are 
here, employed in various kinds of work. Is 
not that a unique experience in college life ? One 
cannot help inquiring about their welfare in this 
novel mode of existence. The young ladies have 
their dormitory and are looked after by a matron ; 
in fact one of their professors, a lady, is here 
with them and also sells wares in a booth. The 
young people of both sexes eat at the same table 
in the dining hall, just as at Otterbein, which has 
taken this marvelous flight to the World's Expo- 
sition, and which surely will have a great in- 
crease of attendance on account of these fair 
advertisers. 

Thus the Orientals have had placed before 
them the latest turn of American freedom — a 
phase of the joint education of the sexes, both 
boy and girl being in the very springtime of 
youth. What do they make of it? Evidently it 
staggers them, with a consciousness resting on a 



312 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

wholly different view of the sexual relation. For 
one of their chief problems is, What shall we do 
with the woman, the temptress of the man, yet 
also his mother? The Oriental answer has been 
polygamy, the harem, seclusion; the woman is 
not to be trusted, she must be penned up, kept 
away from the world ; it were best for her never 
see any other man but her husband. Such a 
view rests upon suspicion, the belief in the inborn 
weakness of woman when she comes in contact 
with man. But Otterbein has courageously 
assaulted the polygamous stronghold of Cairo; 
with what result, I wonder? 

These ladies going through the street, bare- 
faced, talking, casting their glances wherever 
they choose — these Otterbein girls far away 
from home and family, freely mingling among 
men — what impression does it all produce upon 
the mind of the East? Will the Orientals carry 
back any new idea to old Egypt, to spring up as 
a fresh flower in the valley of the Nile? Nor 
can we suppress another query : Will they suc- 
ceed in taking back to Egypt any of these young 
ladies whom they address so gallantly? One 
aff'air of heart has been already reported in the 
newspapers, which report the honest visitor will 
investigate before believing. The muezzin, a 
religious oflicial connected with the mosque, he 
who calls the faithful to prayers from the minaret, 
is said to have been the hero of the romance. 



THE PLAISANGE — THE STREET IN CAIRO. 313 

Dare we ask one of these young ladies? **Tell 
me, was it so?" *' Yes, there was one case, but 
it was not so bad as the newspapers made out? " 
*'How bad was it? " Whereupon the story is 
modestly told ; a very serious case I think, more 
serious than any report I had read in the news- 
papers. But it is all over now, without any 
tragedy; the Egyptian Romeo was pointed out 
to nie, he was just then paying attention to 
another Juliet. 

In such manifold ways life keeps welling up in 
thePlaisance ; the novel is acting itself, doubtless 
somebody is writing it too. Indeed several 
dozens of romancers have already begun spin- 
ning their fabric, we dare affirm, with scene laid 
just here; vast will be the output. Can we not 
see young hearts gaily fluttering on every side of 
us? Orient and Occident are continually rubbing 
together, and generating by attrition a spark 
which leaves behind it an anecdote at least. The 
present writer happened to be conducting three 
ladies through the Street in Cairo one day, when 
he was met by an Egyptian acquaintance, a man 
from Alexandria, who asked him: **Is that 
your harem?" Spoken in a foreign tongue 
were the words, let it be said ; surely the world 
in which such a thought could be born is different 
from ours. 

Great will be our delight to enter a private 
dwelling, and to see an Egyptian, or rather an 



314 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

Arabian intericM% which we might not be able to 
see at the real Cairo. The house of Gamal El 
Din El Yahbi, erected in the 17th century, 
Is open to the visitor, who is informed that the 
doors, windows and various ornaments had to be 
purchased and taken from the original building 
in order to be brought hither. Surely we ought 
to be thankful. The whole structure, from the 
entrance to the upper story, tells of the Orient, 
hinting a warm climate and the secluded life of 
the family. The windows are glassless, there 
being no rain in Egypt ; through the close inter- 
stices of lattice- work we peep into the bustling 
street. Eugs are spread everywhere, on the 
floor, on the sofa, in the corner, inviting the 
tired body to lounge ; reclining we look up at the 
ceiling with its intricate figures, or trace the 
elaborate workmanship on the walls and in the 
furniture ; Arabic patterns we follow out in carv- 
ing, in mosaic, in richly inlaid articles made of 
wood and ivory and metal. Oriental luxury has 
its suggestion in all the furnishings ; a dreamy 
sensuous existence this must have been, spend- 
ing itself in ease and enjoyment, and showing 
itself in an art which revels in a fantastic play of 
vegetable and geometrical forms. These, how- 
ever, recur with a mechanical regularity, the 
wildest Arabic fancy is at bottom mathematic, 
being limited to a certain fixed order and repeti- 
tion. Can we not see that Fate holds this spirit 



THE PLAISANCE — THE STREET IN CAIRO. 315 

fast underneath all its effervescence? An alge- 
braic mind is here, with its intricate but abstract 
formulas, into which it pours its art and its life. 
An iron band runs around and shuts up tight this 
foaming vessel of caprice and spontaneity. 

One would be glad to obtain a glimpse of the 
family life which developed itself in such a 
place. The mother, the child, the father at 
home we fain would behold ; curious too, we are 
about that question of several wives under one 
roof. The work here shows a certain wild 
freedom up to a given limit, which is then most 
rigidly drawn, immovable as mathematics. Ex- 
cessive indulgence within a prescribed bound we 
may read in these artistic surroundings, but be- 
yond the bound we feel a strong repression, 
which may become cruelty. What bas already 
been said of the whole street is true of this house : 
its freedom has a tendency to license, its restraint 
has a tendency to tyranny. 

The typical animal of the Orient is not want- 
ing in Cairo ; the camel is on hand and must be 
ridden, particularly by the American girl. This 
ride furnishes the chief amusement, is, in fact, 
the culmination of the bubbling humors of the 
street. On the top of the camel's hunch is a 
kind of saddle, rather primitive; on the saddle 
are perched two persons usually, who go swaying 
up and down with the peculiar undulation of 
this ship of the desert. One can fancy himself 



316 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

crossing the great sand-seas of the east in that 
way, but most of us would prefer a railroad for 
a long journey. Still the ride is a new sensation, 
which the visitor cannot afford to miss. 

The best part of the performance is witnessed 
by the spectators who throng the lower portion of 
the Street, where the mounting and dismounting 
take place. The camel rises slowly with his human 
burden, moves off, then returns, when he lowers 
himself and lets the people spring to the ground. 
Three or even four distinct motions we can discern 
as he settles down : first is a sudden drop to his 
knees in front, which throws the riders forward, 
then a drop to the rear, which throws them back- 
ward ; then another forward and backward 
motion, one quickly following the other, after 
which the beast crouches down on his haunches 
and abdomen, resting at every point upon his 
callosities, these being the cushions which he 
carries with him in his own skin. The same 
movements are reversed when he has to rise. 

Thus the crowd looks at this curious animal 
humbling itself to the earth, lying down to 
receive its burden in the most submissive way : 
it is the very picture of Kesignation, which is 
the great Oriental, and especially Mohammedan, 
virtue, the word Islam signifying just that. In 
its prostration and in its resigned look one can- 
not help seeing a kind of dumb prayer, which is 
also expressed by the position of the head, as it 



THE PLAISANCE— THE STEEET IN CAIBO, 317 

holds itself a little above the ground on the end 
of the crooked neck. One feels like going up 
to the poor downcast animal and showing sym- 
pathy by patting it and talking to it in a kind 
tone. But the camel does not care, it is indif- 
ferent alike to man and the world ; those who 
know it well declare that it has no emotion 
no feeling of comradeship with the human being, 
such as the horse shows for instance. The mul- 
titude pressing about it, laughing, looking, jost- 
ling, it regards not, pays no attention even to 
the unfavorable comments on its beauty. There 
it squats on the pavement, the image of supreme 
indifference to the whole universe, having at- 
tained a sort of Oriental Nirvana, resigned to 
the stroke of Fate. 

But now the stroke comes and starts it; the 
Arab driver cries to the bystanders, Look 
out; these two words being quite the sum of 
his English up to date. He gives to the beast a 
smart blow accompanied with a hoarse Arabic 
guttural; the camel responds with a grunt and 
begins to rise. Up first on the knees in front, 
then up behind; behold, it stands on all fours, 
and starts swaying along the street with its bur- 
den, often a happy pair of lovers, who, blushing, 
smiling, even tittering, take this little voyage 
together in advance of the voyage of life. Back 
they soon come, radiant, triumphant, having 
accomplished so much successfully ; may their 



318 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES, 

future voyage turn out as happily ! Down drops 
the camel again and resumes his look of resigna- 
tion, with half-shut eyes, dreaming perhaps of 
his beloved Arabian sands. 

The observant visitor at the Fair will study 
the people quite as much as the exhibits; he is 
always seeking good points of observation, from 
which he can see human nature throwing off its 
drapery for a moment. He will find such a 
point on the steps of the mosque in the Street, 
whence he will look into the faces of the various 
riders. Many unexpected gleams of disposition 
and character he will observe raying out suddenly, 
for the ride on the camel is quite a test. That 
jerk forward and backward is a little trying in 
the presence of the large crowd eager for a 
laugh; every rider knows what is coming when 
the camel begins to rise and prepares for the 
emergency. See this lady stem herself courage- 
ously, leaning back with knit features ; but the 
next one screams, and the third one may faint 
or become hysterical. Surely quite a little test 
is it which causes the whole inner spirit to flash 
through the face for a moment in spite of the 
spectators. Two j^oung ladies, companions, con- 
clude to take a ride together ; they mount the 
camel's back; through some defect in the saddle 
or some negligence of the driver they topple 
over, heels upward, fortunately without injury. 
Not an agreeable situation before a large com- 



THE PLAISANCE — THE STREET IN CAIRO. 319 

pany is it to be turned upside down in that way, 
with women's present costume madly rushing 
toward the head. One of the young ladies re- 
fuses very naturally to take that sort of a trip 
the second time, being both ashamed and scared 
by her short trial. But the second maiden, on 
the invitation of the driver, swings herself again 
on that camel's hump, with an air of resolution 
which makes every heart in the crowd thrill ; 
unabashed by one small reverse she takes her 
ride alone, and, as she sails oflf, the multitude 
breaks out into loud huzzas and clappings of 
hands at the pluck of the little heroine. The 
bachelor friend at my side, usually somewhat 
satirical, joins in the general acclamation, and 
then gives way to a sigh, declaring, *' Well, 
there she is at last; I would take my risk with 
that girl, were it not, alas I for these gray 
hairs." 

Thus infinite bubbles are thrown up in the 
street here, bubbles of pure Human Nature, 
which attract the observer quite as much as the 
outer show. A great study is the crowd of vis- 
itors as they enter this foreign world, and strive 
to partake of its spirit, admiring, enjoying, bar- 
gaining for a souvenir which strikes the fancy. 
The Occident in its latest manifestation on the 
Western continent comes buzzing through the 
Orient with the joyous noise of a festival, a look 
of amusement lights up every face, as it mirrors 



320 WOULD' S FAIB STUDIES. 

the mirth of the street. Surely the coming 
European journey, which we all intend to take, 
will have to include Cairo. 

Another phase of Egyptian life we may witness 
in the jugglers, fortune tellers, mediums, snake 
charmers, conjurors, that strange world in which 
the false and the true are so completely mingled 
that the human mind hardly knows how to separate 
them. Of such people we read in the biblical 
accounts of ancient Egypt; a kind of contest be- 
tween Moses and the Egyptian wonder-workers 
is recorded in a famous passage of the Pentateuch. 
The visitor will seek to enter this borderland of 
deception and self-deception, ever fascinating to 
the populace and regarded with a kind of awe. 
But thaumaturgy, once deemed divine, is now 
held to be diabolic, literally or figuratively — a 
demonic power or a lying trick. Fortune-telling 
still lingers in the dark undercurrents of civilized 
peoples ; but it comes to the front emphatically 
in the Street in Cairo. Fatinia enters a cabinet, 
somewhat after the fashion of the Davenport 
brothers, with hands tied together in a hard knot ; 
she then gets herself untied behind the cuHain. 
I am blindfolded and put into the cabinet with 
her, a bell is placed in my hand and rung, while 
her arms are fastened. I ask Fatima if she holds 
that disembodied spirits did all that. She laughs 
and says: I have no theory. Old is the adage, 
VuU decipi; man wishes to be deceived and can- 



TEE PLAISANCE — THE STREET IN CAIIiO. 321 

not be hindered, look at this crowd admiring the 
juggler. A kind of demonic cult is general in 
the Orient, culminating with certain sects in a 
downi'ight wtu'ship of the Devil. 

In such manner new and old Egypt are present, 
each represented in its special religious edifice ; 
the two bounds of the street are the Mohamme- 
dan Mosque and the Temple of Luxor. Very 
different are they in time of origin, in architect- 
ural form, and in the spirit which erected them. 
Still, they say one thing in common : the religious 
life dominates the secular; the busy trade of this 
street is encompassed by religion, which cannot 
be left to the individual, but is the universal 
matter, and hence belongs to the State. So the 
two edifices of worship, the old and the new, sig- 
nificantly stand at the beginning and end of Cairo 
with their command to the enclosed people. 

The minaret, which is so prominent in the 
street, proclaims at a distance to the outside 
world its religion and its city. It too is a copy 
from a famous original. From it the muezzin 
calls the faithful to prayer five times a day; in- 
deed the minaret itself is a kind of prayer, 
mounting upward by successive stages with long- 
ing for Heaven, till it rounds itself out in a small 
bulbous dome surmounted by a crescent which 
seems floating off in the skies. No bell sounds 
from the minaret, but a voice crying is the sum- 
mons, which is indeed the minaret voiced, speak- 

21 



322 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

ing down to the earth from above. Thus we 
behold in it an emblem of Mohammedanism. 
That world below of business, of individual pur- 
suits, of human desires, and of personal gratifi- 
cation must now pass to the mosque and surrender 
itself to the One God ; all difference, particularity, 
self-will, pride, must through prayer elevate itself 
out of the Street of Cairo into Divine Unity. 
Five times a day is this process to be repeated 
by the good Mussulman, outwardly cleansing 
himself by ablution from the dirt, and inwardly 
cleansing himself by supplication from the ca- 
prices, of an Oriental city. Verily both forms 
of purification are needed. 

Very different is the voice of the Temple of 
Luxor. What does it say? The Sphinx lies 
before it, half -human, half-animal, with its riddle 
unsolved, and suggests in advance what the archi- 
tecture signifies. A massive terrestrial element 
is in the building, which spreads out over much 
space without great height ; but there is also in 
it the divine element though heavily encumbered 
by nature. This combination of spirit and 
matter is verily the great riddle, which, as already 
said, was solved by the Greek world. 

Hellenic Egypt in its two forms, Heathen and 
Christian, lies between old and new Egypt, 
being their connecting link. Still the Greek is 
there and is here in Cairo; one finds him as 
artisan, as baker, as shopkeeper, as manager of 
the Temple of Luxor. One young Greek, 



THE PLAISANCE — SAVAGE LIFE. 323 

a native of Egypt, told mo that he had studied 
at the University of Athens, that he had come to 
the World's Fair to earn money for the purpose 
of completing his study of the law which he 
intended to practice in the Egyptian capital. 
The subtle Hellenic spirit is still active in the 
Orient ; indeed there is some promise of its reju- 
venation. And in this connection we must not 
forget that old Greek, Herodotus, Father of 
History, who was probably the first man to 
reveal Egypt to the world and to give to it, about 
450 B. C, its due place in Universal History. 
His account still remains, on the whole, the best 
we have of that ancient people in the valley of the 
Nile. For Egypt was a sphinx-riddle unto her- 
self, never knowing herself well enough to give 
any clear historic expression of herself. Herein 
again it was a Greek CEdipus who first guessed 
the Egyptian riddle and told the same to the 
future. 

n. The Plaisance. — Savage Life. 



'1 



The idea of an exhibition of savage peoples 
at the World's Fair has its source in the desire to 
see the complete evolution of man upon our 
earth. Very strong is the thought of develop- 
ment in us all; it is characteristic of our time 
specially, yet it belongs to the whole Occident. A 
universal exposition ought to show humanity un- ^^' 
folding into civilization, that is, into just such an 
exposition. Thus the Fair to a degree gives an 



324 WORLD'S FAIE STUDIES. 

account of itself in the Plaisance, from almost 
the human beginning forwards. 

Here the sympathetic visitor will live over the 
life of his own race in Time ; he will start with 
the primitive man, and see the movement of cult- 
ure down the ages. He will also live the total 
human life of the globe at the present moment ; 
he will not be confined to one spot, one nation, 
or one continent; he must spiritually circum- 
navigate the earth, and fraternize with all that 
he beholds. Thus he begins to reach the pro- 
portions of the universal man ; Space and Time 
are removing their limits from his soul. 

Savages from each great division of the globe 
have come together for our study, enticed doubt- 
less by gain, yet gain is but an instrument of 
some higher energy. Africa, the black man's 
world, has sent its contribution in the Dahomey 
negroes; Asia gives us the wild Bedouin, whose 
race has in it all stages from savage to civilized; 
Polynesia sends contingents along with North 
and South America. How much of the w^orld is 
still in possession of the savage ! Europe alone 
has no uncivilized people, though some are far to 
the rear ; perhaps, too, the Aryan is that one of 
the great races which has fewest savages. 

Unhistorical peoples are these savages ; that is, 
they have no history except as they collide with 
historical peoples. No record of their own they 
hand down, unless it be a fleeting hazy cloud of 
folk-lore; they cannot give any true account of 



THE PLAI8ANCE — SAVAGE LIFE. 325 

themselves, they have done nothing worthy of 
such account. They have not reached the stage 
of national self-consciousness, which begets 
history, wherein the nation looks at itself. But 
when the savage and the civilized man come in 
contact, the latter tells the tale. The wars and 
battles of uncivilized tribes count for nothing 
seemingly in the World's History, since they are 
not recorded. 

It may be said of all these savage peoples that 
they are solving the problem of life as it ap- 
pears to them. Food they must have, shelter 
also to a limited extent, and some of them need 
clothing. These they have to wrest somehow 
from nature, and therewith the march of civili- 
zation begins. Man's mastery over nature is 
shown in its last and highest phase, by the Ex- 
position ; the Dahomey negro has clearly begun 
to travel on the same road. Then a political 
problem confronts the humblest race, which 
problem compels him usually to be a warrior. 

But what we see in the Plaisance is mainly the 
incipient stages of human education, which 
starts even with the savage. Music, the dance, 
the song, are but forms of a rudimentary learn- 
ing, which begins with a training of the body 
and passes into a training of the mind. A 
rhythm governs the motions and the voices of 
these people, a certain recurrence which hints of 
law, of an order. A subordination of caprice is 



32G WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

Decessary in the wildest dance, an adjustment to 
music, which gives the rule. Then there is the 
subordination of many who move together ; they 
must co-operate, they must act as one or nearly 
so in most of these dances ; the idea of associa- 
tion hirks therein, and in a society the individual 
must adjust himself and recognize others. Also 
a certain harmony results, an inner harmony of 
character as well as an outer harmony of move- 
ment. 

Thus we behold a S3'stem of education in the 
savage world, a barbarous system, yet truly 
disciplinary. These people are working at their 
problem in this life, with vision dim, chaotic, 
frantic. Yet see them labor ! Very plainly 
they show the fundamental characteristic of 
human spirit; they are bursting their bounds of 
nature and mere animality, though still very 
natural and animal-like; they are rising out of 
their limits, and thus indicate their possibility, 
which is simply infinite. Self-development, edu- 
cation they manifest, and who sees not that fails 
of seeing the real inherent purpose of these 
doings of savaores. 

Moreover tHey all seek to figure by motion, 
voice, music, their relation to the Divine Gov- 
ernor of the world. Very crude is the expres- 
sion, and capable of monstrous abuse; but they 
have religion, they believe in a spiritual order 
of some kind above them. They also believe in 
immortality, in the existence after death, in the 



THE PL AIS AN CE— SAVAGE LIFE. 327 

individual spirit. Therein are the two germs of 
all religion and of all culture — God and Immor- 
tality, or the Great Spirit and the Little Spirit, 
both eternal. 

Very suggestive is it to study their music. 
Kude though it be, we can find in it the begin- 
ning of every instrument in the modern orches- 
tra. It produces the external rhythm to which 
the adjustment of the body has to be made. 
Vibrations are started by blows on some resonant 
substance at regular intervals ; such is the first 
outer form of that to which the whole man is 
finally to be attuned. The important place of 
music in all education becomes a most impressive 
fact in the Plaisance. The lowest savage starts 
to training himself through music, and becomes 
to a degree harmonious with himself and with 
the world, having an outer and an inner concord. 

So, in the Plaisance, we witness the very be- 
ginning of the march of civilization, and we can 
follow the same road, one mile long, yet extend- 
ing round the belt of the globe ; a few hours' 
gaze, yet running through thousands of years. 
The man of to-day must be ideally' all that his 
race has been — prehistoric and historic, barbar- 
ous and civilized. This is truly the deepest sig- 
nificance of the Plaisance as well as the ground 
of its attractiveness, and the reason of its being. 

Nor can we help noting the evanishment of 
certain races. The North American Indian is 
doomed, he knows so himself ; the present writer 



328 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

has heard him call the Indian a sick man, going 
to die. One can note' the death-mark in his 
features; he is dying proud, defiant, dying 
mainly through pride. The Polynesians are also 
said to be diminishing in numbers, and it looks 
as if the decree of Fate was against them. The 
African is not to be exterminated directly, he 
has too much pliability ; but he also will probably 
be absorbed, bleached by centuries into a pale- 
face. So we forecast him, not only in America 
but throughout the world. In Africa itself the 
process has manifestly begun, it began even in 
old Egypt. There remains the Mongolian, most 
stubborn of races, hard as granite, and the Cau- 
casian, most active of races. Between China 
and Anglo-Saxondom is probably to be the future 
great struggle on this planet. Its preliminary 
skirmish is already heard on the Pacific coast. 
The intermediate field lies in the vast archipelago 
of the Pacific, occupied now by many varieties 
of the Malay stock, evidently an easy, offense- 
less, unaggressive race. 

But of these future troubles we need at present 
take no account. The means are here afforded 
for a study of savagery in every quarter of the 
globe, and few of us will ever again have such an 
opportunity. Specially should it be seized by 
the profession of teachers, who can here see how 
the race starts to teaching itself in the primary 
grade, without any pedagogical science. Nor 
should the kinderorardners be slow to take a 



THE PL AI SANG E— SAVAGE LIFE. 329 

glimpse of nature's own kindergarden composed 
of grown-up infants, who, following the soul's 
deepest impulse, make their play-school without 
the aid of Froebel. Finally the thinker, trying 
to put together a World's History, and to see 
therein the workings of a World-Spirit, will 
often be seen meditating among the savages of 
the Plaisance. 

1. The Africans of Dahomey have a special 
interest for the people of the United States. 
The negro is there seen in his native element, we 
can witness what he does for himself when he is 
left alone. The black race furnishes at present 
a large contingent of American citizens, and it is 
clear that Africa itself is certain to have its race 
troubles. It is now being seized and colonized 
by the leading Aryan branches of Europe — 
English, French, German, Italian. The present 
age has witnessed its exploration, we might 
almost say its discovery. Yet from time im- 
memorial the blacks have overflowed from central 
Africa and mingled with the races which lie next 
on the northern border. Egypt in antiquity must 
have always had dealings with them ; the Arabians 
are strongly amalgated with them ; indeed Semitic 
tongues are spoken in Abyssinia and Soudan, 
and some ethnologists have derived all these 
Semites from Africa as their original home. 
Again, the African seems to have gone eastward 
toward the Indian Ocean and Polynesia and to 
have left his mark upon many islands of the 



330 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

Pacific Ocean. Possibly he was carried thither 
as a slave, and finally mingled with the dominant 
population, when his time came, as he. seems 
destined to do in America. 

On the whole, the African has been the easiest 
prey for the slave-trader, and he makes the best 
slave. It is no great change from his condi- 
tion in his own country. Then he possesses 
that supreme trait — adjustability. He becomes 
Christian, Mohammedan, whatever his master is 
or desires ; he has a pliable nature, he bends but 
does not break. So he is saved and prospers in 
slavery; indeed for him slavery among civilized 
peoples is a decided improvement in his condi- 
tion. As one looks upon these Dahomey bar- 
barians, one feels that slavery may not have been 
altogether a curse for the black man, though it 
certainly was for the white man. It was a great 
discipline of the African, but the discipline meant 
advancement, which hurried- him along by ages. 

The dances and festivals of Dahomey are 
heathenish, yet one must regard them as an infant 
school. They have manifold meanings, warlike, 
cruel, obscene. Yet these jDeople are working 
hard and working with a zest. The king sits with 
great dignity on his throne in the presence of 
his black merry-makers. It happens to rain 
while I am there and we all betake ourselves 
to the shed for shelter and mingle with the 
dancers, Amazons and men. We seize the 
opportunity to shake hands with the old king or 



THE PLAISANCE — SAVAGE LIFE. 331 

chieftain, an attention which he accepts with 
evident pleasuro from the pale-face. But what 
a world of antics, of caprices, of convulsions ! 
Still, under it all a law is in the process of 
fulfillment. 

One of the marvelous facts of Dahomey is that 
of the Amazons, woman soldiers who constitute 
the body guard of the king, ** having renounced 
love and marriage," as the accounts of some 
travelers declare, rather curiously. It is said 
that they surpass the men soldiers of the king in 
courage and ferocity. In a festival, these women 
will tear a living ox to pieces and devour its meat 
warm and palpitating, like wild beasts. Human 
sacrifices are common in Dahomey, and volun- 
tary suicides are at certain periods the order of 
the day. 

But the interesting fact is that the old Greek 
legend of female warriors abjuring family and 
marriage has become a reality in African Daho- 
mey. In Asia there may have been once such 
a people, whereby the Greek imagination was 
fired, and brought the beautiful Amazons into 
condict with Athenian youths in Attica. A 
great subject for Plastic Art the myth of the 
Amazons became ; some of the best remains of 
ancient sculpture are devoted to this theme. 

But here we behold the living African Amazon, 
half-naked like her sculptured sister, with breast 
exposed, scarred, fierce, yet with far different 
facial lines, fiat-nosed, woolly-headed, thick- 



332 WOBLWS FAIU STUDIES. 

lipped, black in strong contrast with white 
Parian marble. Eeally the Greek artist shows 
his Amazon conquered by love for the beautiful 
youth she is about to slay ; the love in the woman 
triumphs over war. Such an artistic motive is 
hard to imagine in case of these African Ama- 
zons. 

One cannot forbear making a reflection upon 
the social outlook of such a fact. Let the Amer- 
ican woman who longs for the ballot take her 
Dahomey sister as an object-lesson. For here 
is the woman who has become a soldier, de- 
fending herself and her country even better 
than the man, according to good authority. 
Thus she has gotten her rights in Dahomey. 
But otherwise the women there are considered as 
the simple property of the husband, and he sells 
her as he would his beast of burden. She does 
all the work outdoors and indoors; she prepares 
her husband's food, which she presents to him on 
her bended knees without sharing in the meal; she 
has, however, the remnants to nibble at in her 
own little corner. But when she becomes an 
Amazon, all this is changed. So the American 
woman must in some way be able to defend her 
right when she has it, particularly the right of 
suffrage, which has sometimes to be maintained 
by force. If the interest in physical culture 
continues to engage the attention of our college 
girls, why should they not drill, and even shoot 
if necessary? Then there will be no doubt 



TEE PL AISANCE — SAVAGE LIFE. 333 

about suffrage. Truly every right has a correla- 
tive duty, aud the right of suffrage brings the 
corresponding duty of defending it. Otherwise 
it cannot mean much, if it ever gets to be. 
Woman must not rely upon man to defend her 
vote, else it will be his in the end. 

About one hundred people are declared to be 
dwelling in these huts, wild Africans from the 
equatorial regions. Naked they run in their own 
haunts: here they are kept almost decently 
half-clothed, with some difficulty the manager 
says. They are at school working away, with 
much exertion ; for the dance and the games, even 
the heathen rites, are attempts to transcend their 
narrow bounds, to give to nature a rhythmic 
order, though they be going through the slaugh- 
ter of a victim. A sort of kindergarden we think 
of here, in spite of great differences; they are 
putting into play and festival their rise out of 
mere animalism, though the rise be very small. 

There is present an orchestra which is primi- 
tive, yet shows the lines on which music has 
moved. First of all is the drum, being of vari- 
ous kinds, made of skins stretched over hollow 
logs, kegs, basins, kettles, producing a rever- 
beration delightful to the savage ear. We see 
also a very rude stringed instrument, and a sort 
of flute or wind instrument. In fine one can 
behold the first patterns of the instruments of 
Thomas' orchestra, which is also an evolution. 

The song is given along with the orchestra, 



334 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

having refrains of various kinds, the whole being 
sung to the beat of the drum, which is the time- 
measurer. The dance follows in accord; the 
beat is often emphasized by the clapping of 
hands and the stamping of feet. Very suggest- 
ive is the performance in many ways; Pindar, 
the greatest of lyric poets, was the bloom of just 
these rude primitive elements : song, dance, in- 
strument, word. But the word is nearly all that 
is left us of Pindar, while in Dahomey we can 
behold a totality at least, though it be in the 
crude germ. 

Thus many beginnings can be traced by the 
diligent seeker in the Dahomey village, perhaps 
all beginnings. Still, even this barbarous start- 
ing-point is an advance. When we look upon 
the animals of equatorial Africa, those most re- 
sembling the human shape, the gorilla and the 
chimpanzee, we see the vast gulf between the 
highest animal and the lowest man. We shall 
have to confess that the Dahomeyan is educating 
himself, which fact we cannot affirm of the ani- 
mal. He is transforming the nature given him, in 
whose bounds he will not rest ; he must transcend 
them, hence he is a man. Evidently he has in 
him the infinite potentiality of mankind; behold 
him active in the dance, song, even in the bloody 
rite, not without a providential purpose. He is 
traveling toward freedom, though it may take 
him a million of years to reach the first mile-post. 

2. Of the native races, doubtless the North 



THE FLAISANCE— SAVAGE LIFE. 335 

American Indian is to be placed next to the 
African in the scale of interest for the American. 
He belongs in this country, he once possessed 
the whole continent; with him therefore has been 
the white race's conflict. He is vanishing in a 
double struggle, outer and inner. The pale-face 
is destroying him, and he is destroying himself. 
He will not as a general rule enter civilization, 
so he is mowed down ; the Indian is proud, he 
resists, he is ready to die, and he dies. 

Then in every tribe there is an inner conflict. 
Always there are some Indians, usually a minor- 
ity, who see the hopelessness of their cause, and 
advise acceptance of the new Order. At once 
against them and their party rises the conserva- 
tive, who proposes to retain even unto death 
the customs and institutions of the fathers. The 
two parties often reach the point of civil war. 
Again, certain tribes are friendly to the whites 
and enemies of the wild Indians. Still more 
effective are the vices of civilization, specially 
the use of fire-water. 

The Plaisance has two camps of Indians, both 
representative. The center of the one is the 
chief Rain-in-the-face; this chief is said to be 
the real slayer of General Custer, whose death 
was one of the most impressive incidents in the 
whole range of Indian warfare. It has taken 
hold of popular imagination, as Custer was a 
y@uthful dashing cavalry general who had won 
great distinction during the Civil War. So we 



336 WOBLD'S FAIE STUDIES. 

behold here the cabin of Sitting Bull, not a chief 
but a medicine man, evidently, however, the soul 
of the revolt against the white supremacy. 

Thus the bloody tragedy of the border finds its 
type ; the penalty must be paid by the civilized 
man to the barbarian. Similar indeed, is a very 
large fragment of the history of America from 
the beginning, but that page is pretty nearly 
ended in the United States ; the border is carried 
beyond the Indian limit, and Rain-in-the-face 
comes to the great Fair and is shown to the 
crowd as the last ember of the expiring con- 
flict. 

As one looks upon his countenance, it gives 
signs of a great rude will ; behold the strong jaws 
and the strong features. A stoical demeanor he 
shows; it is said that in the grand Indian sun- 
dance once he was hung up by the flesh for a 
day, from sunrise to sunset in order that the Sun 
in Heaven might behold his adamantine endur- 
ance. But greater than his stoicism is his pride; 
he turns away with a look of contempt from the 
white multitude gazing at him, he seems to feel 
that he is in the hands of a resistless power de- 
stroying his world, so he will not deign to give a 
conciliatory glance to the people who have un- 
done his race. It is true he will shake hands, 
possibly smile at you while doing thus, but he 
will not talk, though it is said he understands and 
can express himself in English. He lies down, 
beside him are two crutches; he can fight no 



THE PLAISANCE — 8A VAGE LIFE. 337 

more, the white man's bullet has prostrated him 
and reduced him to a mere show. 

A tale of border horrors is connected with the 
cabin, fourteen men are said to have been killed 
in it at one time ; marks of bullets are pointed 
out in the floor after they had passed through 
human bodies. Even a woman's scalp taken by 
some Indian, is displayed, a relic which makes 
the spectator shiver, yet recalls the fact of 
bloody massacres perpetrated by Indians during 
three centuries of American history. Civiliza- 
tion costs, and the purchase money is human 
life. 

We pass to the second camp of Indians, which 
manifests another side more strongly, that of 
inner conflict and disintegration. It suggests 
remnants gathered for a final show ; five or more 
tribes are represented in small numbers. We 
are treated to a selection of Indian dances, rather 
a waning amusement for the participants them- 
selves, with some weak whooping. Indiali tents 
lie scattered around containing squaws and pap- 
pooses, the picture being realistic to the last 
degree ; women and children are sleeping on the 
ground, rolled up in dirty, disordered blankets 
and rags. Though the new-born babe is on hand, 
yet all indicates decline, neglect, a giving up to 
the inevitable. It is a pitiful sight ; only one 
family, who call themselves Iroquois, but who are 
nearer to the white race than to the Indian, show 
industry, cleanliness and hope. Still the most 

22 



338 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

of these persons manifest pride, or a kind of 
despairing defiance. 

Another cause of the inner disintegration was 
brought to the surface while we were present. 
At the beginning of one of the dances an Indian 
became ugly, began to swear, and left the camp 
with threats. The manager had this short ac- 
count to give of him: He had taken too much 
fire-water. Indeed it was only too plain that 
some others of the red-skins had taken too much 
of the white man's fire-water. Dilapidation was 
again the impression as one glanced at tbem tot- 
tering about the camp or staggering at their 
business. The dances no longer showed the 
natural frenzy of the war-spirit, only one boy 
really danced in a way that indicated a sober 
head. 

So the Indians revealed themselves, in a typi- 
cal melancholy picture, as a dying race. Very 
strong was the vanishing idea in them ; proud 
and defiant like Kain-in-the-face, or sinking in a 
drunken orgy, like some others. Wholly differ- 
ent is the African whom we saw as a savage on 
the other side of the street ; his material is yield- 
ing, form able, he can make himself a place in 
the household and also in the heart of his master. 
Slavery cannot destroy him, it rather helps him 
up to a certain point. But the Indian cannot 
be enslaved, he is above it, or perchance below 
it; that is, he cannot take that which certainly 
has been one of the elements of the historic 



FEE PLAISANCE — ETHNIC SUMMARY. 339 

progress of the race, namely the training through 
servitude. Most refractory and brittle is the 
stuff of the Indian, he breaks through pride and 
defies through stoicism; the African has little 
stoicism or pride, though he certainly possesses 
vanity. Such are our two savage races on the 
Plaisance, one rising, the other declining, one to 
be transformed, the other to be destroyed.^ 

III. The Plaisance. — Ethnic Summary. 

Everybody who becomes much interested in 
the hiany peoples of the Plaisance, desires to find 
out some method of classifying them. How is 
it possil)le to obttiin a complete survey, and put 
them into their proper relations with one another? 
Shall our point of view be geographical, ethno- 
logical, lins^uistic or historic? It is hard to 
exclude any one of these methods of division, 
equally hard to carry it rigidly through and apply 
it to the entire mass. 

The old way of dividing mankind into five 
races has been often assailed, and undoubtedly 
has its defects; still it remains popular and holds 
its place. Again, a division based upon the re- 
lationship of language has become current, and 
asserts itself alongside of the one just mentioned ; 
thus we have the threefold division of mankind, 
according to linguistic affinities, into Aryan, 
Semitic, and Turanian. Then history introduces 
new points of connection between nations, thi'ough 
war, subjugation, migration ; for instance, the 



340 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

Turkish citizen can be Aryan, Semitic, Turanian; 
or Caucasian, Mongol, African. 

On the whole the simplest way of proceeding 
is to follow the great geographical divisions round 
the earth, and let the other divisions play in by 
the way, according to necessity. Thus we shall 
be able to see in the Plaisance typical examples 
of the races of America, Africa, Polynesia, 
Eastern Asia, Western Asia and Europe. A 
voyage round the world is it and more; it sug- 
gest the historic and pre-historic development of 
man. 

1. We have already touched upon wild Amer- 
ica in a previous study. Two camps of North 
American Indians we have observed, and have 
noted the fact of the rapid disappearance of 
their race. Here we may remark that this evan- 
ishment seems to be a characteristic of the soil. 
America has been fatal to races, some are dying, 
others are just dead, others again disappeared 
some centuries ago. The Pacific Coast has been 
the home of peoples which perished before the 
advance of the Indian. Mexico and Central 
America show many monuments of nations that 
have ceased to exist; in like manner the Missis- 
sippi Valley has its unrecorded mound builders. 
The lost clift-dwellers of the mountainous West 
are another example of the same kind. A museum 
of dead and dying races is the entire Western 
continent. 

The question is naturally asked: *' Will this 



THE PLAISANCE — ETHNIC SUMMABY. 341 

Continent be fatal to the white race, which has had 
only four centuries' experience here?" Some 
have pretended to see the signs thereof in our 
own people ; still it would seem that Europeans 
thrive and multiply in the United States. A 
short space, however, is four hundred years; we 
might tell more if we could look back through 
four thousand. At any rate, a fitful melancholy 
glare is thrown upon us from these dead and 
dying races of America, which are also repre- 
sented at the World's Fair, appearing like a 
death's head in all the bubbling joyous life before 
us. Will Chicago ever be a ruin in the wilder- 
ness? Is the sudden vanishing of the wonderful 
structures of the Exposition to be prophetic? 
You and I, my reader, may as well pass on, for 
we cannot wait until the Oracle has given its 
response. 

2. Africa is represented in the Plaisance by 
the people of Dahomey, who have been already 
described. A vast unknown tract this division 
of the globe has been till recent times; yet it 
possesses a northern border, which has belonged 
to the known world from the earliest ages. The 
Mediterranean Sea has been the center, the heart 
so to speak, around which man's development 
has chiefly taken place ; a strip of Africa lies on 
this sea. But it is separated from main Africa by 
a sea of sand, more terrible, less hospitable, less 
passable, than a sea of water. The Atlantic and 



342 WOELD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

the Pacific have become easily navigable, but the 
desert of Sahara is hardly yet conquered. The 
isolation of Africa from the center of the world's 
advancement has been greater than that of any 
other division of the globe. Indeed it has had 
to be reached from the south at points farthest 
from Europe. 

Yet in Africa lies the valley of the Nile", which 
seems to have the best right to be called the 
original home of civilization. Egypt, however, 
could not penetrate southward to any great ex- 
tent; her culture flowed out of the Nile into the 
Mediterranean, and thence it laved every shore 
east and west. Up stream the world's progress 
could not swim apparently, it had to wait thou- 
sands of years and come around at last by way 
of the Ocean. Thus Africa has in it the ex- 
tremes, it holds the first and the last in the move- 
ment of civilization. Both extremes are to be 
found in the Plaisance ; the Street in Cairo will 
tell us much about Egypt ancient and modern, 
while the wild African can be seen in the Dahomey 
village. 

3. Polynesia is that part of the globe which 
has separated itself into a vast number of islands, 
lying southeast of Asia in the Indian and Pacific 
Oceans. An island-world it is, in marked con- 
trast with the other grand divisions of the earth's 
surface, being mostly in the tropics, and needing 
much evaporation of water to cool down the heat 
of the land for the habitation of man. This 



THE PLAISANCE — ETHNIC SUMMARY. 343 

region is occupied chiefly by many varieties of 
one race, the Malay, which, though often min- 
gled with the Mongolian and the African, has a 
character of its own. 

The Plaisance has four different types of the 
Malay. First are the Javanese in their bamboo 
village, from the border of the Indian Ocean ; 
then come the Samoans, from the heart of the 
Pacific Ocean ; these two are the main groups. 
The bungalow of Johore is from the Malay Penin- 
sula, which belongs to the great Malay island- 
world, though not quite an island. To these we 
must add the Hawaians. Thus we have an op- 
portunity to see a race which has no connection 
with Europe or America or Africa, which just 
touches continental Asia at one small point and 
then shoots off into the innumerable islands of 
the equatorial Pacific. A new race to most of us : 
what can we make of it ? 

The Javanese in their tidy, industrious cane 
homes have excited not only interest, but positive 
affection in the hearts of their visitors. We shall 
all be sorry to see them leave. So quiet, so in- 
nocent they move about, bare-footed and bare- 
legged, always busy apparently; a race noticeably 
beneath our stature, and certainly with much less 
will-power ; they seem made to serve and to be 
submissive. The women are plying their little 
industries, particularly weaving; how slow it 
seems ! Time is not worth much, valued by such 
an occupation; hence the human being cannot be 



344 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

worth much in Java. Yet they are at work; a 
very primitive bellows moving like a churn and a 
blacksmith shop one observes ; in strans^e contrast 
the American sewing machine is running, and keeps 
company with the earliest forms of mechanical 
contrivance. A golden yellow is the complexion 
of the young maiden; she has a soft voice, nat- 
urally tender, yielding ; an amiable face, but not 
strong, showing little self-assertion. She laughs ; 
this laugh displays her teeth filed off at the edges 
and stained, so that they appear as if decay had 
set in. Thus she embellishes herself, not to our 
taste ; but the Javanese youth may think differ- 
ently. 

Java is four times larger than Holland, yet the 
Dutch have sailed from Europe and have seized 
the island, from which they draw great wealth. 
One feels the weakness of a race which will per- 
mit such a subjection, also the rugged Teutonic 
strength which can bring it about at so great a 
distance. The Javanese are tender-hearted rice 
eaters, dwelling under a warm, dreamy sky; it 
is no wonder that they have developed quite a 
taste for music. It is plain that they have har- 
monious natures ; why should not that find ex- 
pression? A peculiar kind of orchestra or com- 
bination of instruments they possess, of which 
the so-called percussion instrument predominates. 

Characteristic is their way of dealing with 
foreign religions. Their oldest faith is polythe- 
istic, based upon a rule of spirits, good and bad. 



THE PL AISANCE — ETHNIC SUMMARY. 345 

The Brahmin came, then the Buddhist, finally 
the Mohammedan ; the Javanese man is at present 
a Mohammedan in name. But he keeps all his 
religions, and mingles them together. The one 
God of Mohammed he acknowledges, yet that 
does not hinder him from having many little gods 
of his primitive polytheism; nor has he lost the 
traces of Brahma and Buddha. Very docile is 
he, most submissive, even to strange deities. 

One leans to the conclusion that the Javanese 
are the least aggressive people on the earth. 
By no means lazy, but always going about their 
task in a contented way apparently ; with little 
striving for the beyond, they accept whatever 
comes, cheerfully, even thankfully, adopting 
foreign religions and receiving foreign rulers. 
Individuality they lack, they have the Oriental 
trait of abolishing the self-asserting will; is this 
a result of their Hindoo discipline in former 
ages? A soft, gentle, lovable race; but they 
evidently cannot protect themselves in their own 
native home, they have to get their will-power 
from the Occident that they be able to live in 
a settled institutional order. This will-power is 
a stern and a rough master undoubtedly, and he 
will be paid well for his work, since he has the 
ability to obtain his price ; still he renders a 
great service, he does not get something for 
nothing. Thus the Dutch have helped the Jav- 
anese, for a compensation, of course. Thus, 
too, a few thousand Englishmen furnish the will- 



346 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

power to hundreds of millions of Hindoos, and 
demand pay, high pay, in fact the very highest. 
But they give a return in the shape of order, 
good government, defense of the country, with 
certain drawbacks, doubtless, as rum and opium. 

From the Javanese we can pass across the 
street to another people of Malay stock, the 
Samoans, who are squatting about in their conical 
houses, half naked, with tattooed arras and legs, 
showing a very fine physical development for the 
most part. One of these in particular recalls 
the nude Greek athlete by his large but perfect 
proportions of body and limb. They have had 
the exercise of the oar and the combat with the 
sea ; most of the men have been sailors. Yet 
we feel at once that they are not an intense 
race, not limit-defying; they show a sense of 
ease and of enjoyment in spite of their big 
muscles. 

One squats down with them, the magnificent 
cannibals, though a printed notice is posted up, 
warning the visitors not to speak of cannibalism, 
** as it is very offensive to them." We converse 
together, they all talk English, having learned it 
in the mission schools ; the fact soon comes out 
that the men are Catholics and the women 
Protestants. Thus the great Christian rent 
shows itself the first thing ; a Catholic priest I 
saw there from the city, moving about and look- 
ing after the welfare of his flock. Siva, the 
Samoan maiden, writes her name for me in a 



THE PLAISANCE — ETHNIC SUMMARY. 347 

ofood leo:ible hand, and tells me about her home. 
They are polite and answer all questions patiently, 
with one exception possibly, that question about 
eating roast Missionary. 

To-day (August 5), news came from Samoa 
that a battle had taken place between the two con- 
testants for the throne, Metaafi and Malietoa, that 
the former had been beaten, and that the heads 
of the slain had been cut off and tossed up in the 
air during a march of the slayers before their 
kino^. Women fouojht also and were killed in the 
conflict; thus the Amazon has appeared among 
the islanders, and these Samoan girls one beholds 
in a possible future career. I ask friendly 
Penau-aitu about the dreadful report, but he, 
being a strong partisan of Metaafi, does not be- 
lieve that his king has been defeated. He 
showed a little heat on the subject of Samoan 
politics, he resented the interference of the Ger- 
mans in the afi*airs of his country; he claimed, 
however, that his people wanted the Americans 
as protectors. The Lord forgive him if he told 
a story about that. I ask him : ** But how about 
that tossing up of enemies* heads before the 
king? " «* The slayer must take the head of the 
slain to the king, to show that he is the slayer." 
Then he turned his naked tattooed thigh toward 
me and made a motion of decapitation, which 
could hardly be called Christian. Thus one de- 
lightfully passes the greater part of a warm, 
summer day, sitting among the half-naked can- 



348 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES, 

nibals on the mats under the sugar loaf hut given 
by King Metaafi. A kind of tropical dream also 
one can indulge in, after taking a glass of kava, 
the Samoan drink. 

One of the most interesting performances in 
the Plaisance is seen in the Samoan theater, 
where a selection of native songs, dances, games 
is given with great spirit. Joy, war, victory, 
struggle of various kinds is represented in 
rhythmic movements of the body; a symbolism 
of nature we can trace in the various turns and 
attitudes. Surely these Samoans have put their 
life into the music of motion ; the impulse of art 
is here, the need of expressing harmoniously 
what strongly engages the soul . They go through 
a drill with oars, very characteristic ; one notes 
that they are islanders, existing in close relation 
to the sea. In fact they have caught the spirit 
of the waves, and show it in the form of dance 
and whirl and distant reverberation. Their 
rhythm is truly oceanic, derived from deep 
intimacy witn the Ocean during uncounted ages; 
therein probably no race equals them. The 
voices of these people have a natural sweetness, 
a soft note lurks in their speech; they cannot 
help being melodious. The Pacific, which rolls 
around the island homes of the Samoans gives 
them the key-note and the beat, and has attuned 
them till they seem by nature the most musical 
of men. Both calm and storm are in them, as 
in music: the sea transfiijured into motion and 



TEE PLAISANCE — ETHNIC SUMMARY. 349 

song they have brought with them to the Plais- 
ance by simply bringing themselves. 

Wonderful is that island-world, in contrast 
with the two massive continents of the globe, 
lying largely in the Southern Hemisphere, while 
the continuous land lies mostly in the Northern. 
What place has such a fact in the physical order 
of our planet? Will these different conditions 
produce a different kind of man from the con- 
tinental one? Here we have him, in so far as he 
has developed. The United States will be com- 
pelled to do something with him soon, since he is 
our next neighbor toward the east. The Hawaians 
are of the same race, the Malay ; their musical 
gift, too, is much admired in the Plaisance. A 
race more nearly related to the Ocean than 
any other, living within the multitudinous sounds 
thereof more than any other, riding on the sea- 
swell more than any other — will it be pliable as 
the yielding water, yet mount up in foaming bil- 
lows of passion ? The other four races have been 
emphatically land-races, though fragments of 
them have developed under favorable circum- 
stances a maritime character. But the Polyne- 
sians are a sea-race, inhabiting a territory which 
has been cut up into thousands of slices and 
scattered through the Ocean. They now lie 
directly in the path of the world's movement ; 
what will be their contribution to the spiritual 
treasure of mankind? Art, specially music, one 
may guess in advance ; but the Oracle is dumb 



350 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES, 

when asked about their capacity for self-govern- 
ment. 

4. Eastern Asia we shall look at next, for the 
vast Asiatic world demands a division into East 
and West, though to us the whole of it is the 
Orient. Not with much precision can the 
dividing line be drawn ; still we can say that 
Japan, China and part of India belong to this 
portion of the globe; it is also the dwelling-place 
of the Mongol race and of the Buddhistic relig- 
ion, yet neither the race nor the religion can be 
given as the exact characteristic. Hindostan is 
the borderland, where Mohammedanism, the 
religion of Western Asia, is still fighting its 
battle ; this month (August, 1893) we read in the 
newspapers of riots in Bombay between Brahmin 
and Mohammedan. 

Here, then, is a strange product for us of the 
West, a civilization of a peculiar kind — Eastern 
Asiatic. From our point of view we may call it 
extra-historical, it lies outside of the grand his- 
toric continuity which reaches from Western 
Asia through Greece, Rome, medieval and modern 
Europe to America. This historical stream is 
what we call Universal History, yet it is not uni- 
versal, since we know that India and China lay 
outside of it with their own culture and history, 
going back thousands of years. It is but a short 
time comparatively since Eastern Asia has really 
begun to join the World's historic movement, 
being forced thereto by the Occident. 



THE PLAISANCE — ETHNIC SUMMAEY. 351 

At present we shall say a little about China 
which has a characteristic building in the Plais- 
ance, namely, the so-called joss-house. Note 
the two pagodas, flanking the entrance, each of 
them eight stories high, getting smaller, story 
by story, till the top. It is the architectural 
embodiment of Chinese spirit, made up of a series 
of links which can be concluded at any point 
without damaging the unity of the structure. It 
resembles some of the lower orders of creation, 
for instance, the articulates; you can sever an 
angling-worm, and both parts are still worms 
and may live. That is, the pagoda lacks organic 
unity as a whole, particularly when compared 
with a Greek temple. 

Quite consistent with the many-jointed pagoda 
is the great Chinese emblem, the Serpent or 
Dragon, which is seen in manifold plastic and 
painted forms, wherever Chinadora gets a foot- 
hold. It is the image on the Chinese flag, on 
porcelain, vases, embroidery; an enormous 
Drao;on many feet in length coils around in the 
joss-house of the Plaisance. A mythical mon- 
ster with a horrible grotesque head — what can 
it mean to the Chinaman? One will seek for 
explanation among the native attendants here, 
with little result. Surely a symbol, which so 
many millions of people have adopted and re- 
tained, must have some significance to them at 
least. Our American eagle has its import for 



352 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

US, plain enough ; what does this fabulous shape 
say to the Chinese? 

The best utterance we have been able to find, 
after delving a good deal among living natives 
and dead books, is the following: the Dragon 
keeps evil spirits out of Heaven. It is, then, a 
protector, guarding Heaven, and we may add, 
guarding the good man everywhere and the good 
nation. Hence it is painted on the flag, and on 
many utensils of ordinary life in China. Hence, 
too, it is kept here in the joss-house, or temple 
of worship, in this Chinese Heaven on Earth, 
ready to spring out at the innumerable cohorts 
of devils which hover around on the lookout to 
assail such place. 

But the Dragon itself is a devil, a monster, a 
terror in shape, thus it is a devil against a devil. 
At this point we reach the fundamental thought: 
evil destroys evil, is inherently self-destructive. 
Or, to employ a different phrasing, the negation 
negates itself in the end. Thus the Serpent, the 
Draoron here is not the destrover of man, which 
is its character in the Hebrew Mythus as trans- 
mitted to the Occident, but is the destroyer of 
the destroyer. Nevertheless it is a destroyer, 
hence diabolic, and imaged as a horrible fiend 
in Chinese art. 

Now we have reached what may be called the 
ground-line of Chinese consciousness. It sees 
that evil, sin, the negative generally is self- 



THE PLAISANCE — ETHNIC SUMMARY. 353 

undoing, but it does not thereby attain the good 
completely; it idealizes the destroyer of the bad, 
but still conceives of him as a destroyer, as 
negative, as a Dragon. China does not truly 
reach the good, the positive, the universal, in its 
negation of negation, but remains still negative, 
an infinite series in which the evil overcoming 
evil is still evil and must itself be overcome by 
the Dragon. In other words China is a pagoda, 
moral, intellectual, artistic, which can also be 
typified in the endless articulation of the 
Serpent's body. 

Hence Chinese Art cannot really get beyond 
the grotesque, its highest reach is to show the 
fiend undoing the fiend. It cannot attain to the 
positively beantiful in the Greek or Occidental 
sense, just as little as the Chinese consciousness 
can attain to the positively good. Its mythol- 
ogy is essentially infernal, though it may intro- 
duce from the outside a happy abode for souls 
in Paradise. 

Somewhat abstruse, I fear, has this Chinese 
lesson been to thee, my patient reader, but we 
shall now pass on and look at some objects as 
illustrations. Here are two portrayals, one of 
the Chinese Hell, the other of the Chinese 
Heaven, according to the Buddhistic faith. The 
great Mythus of the Future State has then occu- 
pied deeply these people, with the underlying 
thought of reward and punishment. The figures 
stand out like so many puppets in a toy-box ; each 



354 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

looks almost like the other, certainly there is no 
strong characterization. Outer signs, garments, 
head-wear, position designate the individual; 
there is little or no expression of spirit, of 
internality. 

Here, too, we see a copy of the great porce- 
lain pagoda of Nankin, which is thought to ** bring 
prosperity to the Chinese nation." Why? 
In such a structure the nation beholds itself, its 
symbolic work, typifying what it is and what it 
can do. This is the temple of its Gods ; in each 
of the ten stories are idols which the people wor- 
ship and over it all floats the dragon. Must we 
not see the Chinaman as a human pagoda? 

Such his education has made him, for the 
Chinese is an educated race. Into a certain fixed 
mould the young minds of China have been 
forced for centuries; no change is allowed, no 
transcending of the past; divers books have been 
written which are final, specially those of Con- 
fucius, and certain others called the Chinese 
classics. Thus one generation repeats the gener- 
ations before it, always getting smaller like the 
pagoda. 

The worship of ancestors, a very important 
matter in the Chinese religion, leads to the same 
result. Not the living man but the dead progeni- 
tor is the spirit's ideal ; thus the respect for 
family reaches an excess which destroys the free 
person. A long line of deceased ancestry is again 
the pagoda, story after story, till the whole be 



THE PLAISANCE — ETHNIC SUMMARY. 355 

topped out with the live descendant, whose chief 
function is to be like those before him, but less. 
Thus too great reverence for parents destroys in- 
dividuality, a fact of which our American youth 
seems well aware, and at once proceeds to cor- 
rect any Chinese excess in this respect. 

Confucius is the great man of China, and a 
mighty work he has done; since 500 B. C. he has 
molded the Chinese brain after his own pattern 
and kept it pretty much the same. In the joss- 
house a popular work of Confucius is for sale, it 
treats of the duties of children to parents, and has 
numerous illustrations showing instances of filial 
devotion. I purchase a copy from the attendant, 
who talks a fair Chinese-English, on condition of 
his explaining the pictures to me. One of them 
portrayed the son throwing himself into the path 
of a tiger, while the parent fled to a safe place ; 
another represented the son driving ofi the mos- 
quitos from his sleeping parent. My informant 
told me that this dutiful son was but seventy 
years old, while the father was ninety-five. Still 
that father had also a father, who was to be duly 
worshiped, being deceased, and so the series ran 
back to the hazy aforetime. Thus the family has 
crystallized the Chinese spirit into rigid limits, 
and filial duty has overwhelmed other duties. 
Still it might be well for our American boy and 
girl to take a few lessons in Confucius. 

The attendant also offers for sale a Chinese 
almanac, which is used not merely to ascertain 



356 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

the day of the month, but to find out the day 
which is fortunate or ill-boding. Before the 
Chinaman takes a journey or does anything of 
importance, he consults this almanac or luck- 
book, and thus is determined, not through his 
own will but from the outside, to a certain course 
of conduct. ' Therein, however, he is like the 
mass of people everywhere, who have their lucky 
and unlucky calendar. 

Nor must the visitor forget to look at the 
picture of Confucius hung up on the wall of the 
joss-house. The curious fact about it is that it 
does not look like a Chinaman's portrait alto- 
gether ; one feels inclined to question its authen- 
ticity. At any rate here it hangs, the supposed 
image of China's greatest man; very certain, 
however, is the fact that his spirit is here. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

I. Though the predominance of the Oriental 
element in the Plaisance is strongly felt, we must 
not forget that there is also an important 
European element present in it, and adding to 
its diversity and completeness. This European 
element is chiefly seen in the village life of two 
leading European races, Teutonic and Celtic. 
The Teutonic is represented by two villages, 
showing the dualism in the German world, which 
in these days has divided the same into two great 
empires, the German to the north, the Austrian 
to the south ; and also into two great religions, 
Protestant and Catholic. Old Vienna is still a 
German city with German language, customs, 
music and architecture, though it rules over 
Slavonic and even Turanian peoples. The in- 
tense Teutonism of the North relaxes, and spreads 

(357) 



358 WOULD' S FAIR STUDIES, 

itself out in the South, an easy enjoyment of life 
prevails, people eat and drink to the strains of 
sensuous music. We feel the difference at once 
when we pass into the German village ; more 
strength, more internality ; the German home is 
given, but the main thing is the museum of arms, 
military, Prussian, with the soldiers on guard 
even here. Sandow, the German athlete, 
just now is showing himself at Chicago and has 
become the type of his people, the strongest 
man in the world, yet a gentleman, a man of 
culture trained at the German University, not by 
any means a barbarous prize-fighter, though he 
will probably fight in case of necessity. Then 
the music in the German Village is highly 
characteristic: military, organized with a march 
in it like the tread of an army. One cannot 
help cornparing it with the squeaking Turkish 
music just opposite — weak, noisy, chaotic. Yet 
the Turk is always on the street making a prodig- 
ious uproar in person, which no German does; 
the latter stays inside his high walls (the Turk 
has no walls) and listens to his own music and to 
his own soul in response, drinking, it is true, his 
glass of beer. Thus he hints a highly developed 
inner life, with emotion, sentiment, perchance 
sentimentality ; specially he is the philosopher of 
the world. Marked is the contrast between the 
most external and the most internal peoples of 
Europe, the Turk and the German, here set 



MISCELLANEOUS. 359 

opposite one to the other, and each revealing 
himself in architecture, custom, art, in the very 
noises which each is making. 

Of the once powerful Celtic race we have a 
small fragment represented in Ireland, which, 
though not a large country, has to have two 
villages. At once we ask, why not concentrate 
effort and have one villao^e and a good one? 
Alas! The Irish would not be Irish, unless they 
showed a split ; their national condition seems to 
be that of dissension, inner disruption and parti- 
san rancour. Thus, after all, they are right in 
having two villages, revealing the deep, inherent 
dualism which has hitherto rendered national 
unity impossible.- Surely another symbolic fact 
has uttered itself in this case. Perhaps we may 
see herein also, the grand Celtic characteristic; 
for the Celt holds to-day no independent national 
position in Europe, he is ruled and apparently 
has to be ruled by the Teuton, in Great Britain 
as well as in France, in both of which countries 
is still found an important Celtic element. With 
all his brilliant qualities the Celt seems unable to 
organize himself, and so he has to be organized 
from the outside. But what a noise he makes in 
the meantime ! In the face of the whole world, 
particularly in America, he airs his home quar- 
rels ; hence, the matter had to come out at the 
Fair, where the first thing everybody sees is the 
rent, a result of feud in which women seem to 



860 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

have led. The most significant fact about the 
Irish village is, therefore, that there are two 
Irish villasres resultino^ from internal dissension 
transplanted to American soil. Two German 
villages also, it may be said, but back of these 
stand two independent empires. 

As the Celtic seems to be the receding branch 
of the Aryan race in Europe, so the Slavonic 
seems to be the advancing one, with the Teuton in 
the middle and at his culmination. The Slav has 
not shown himself with any distinctness on the 
Midway; but the Laplander, belonging to a pre- 
historic Turanian stock is on hand with his rein- 
deer, though his people have receded into a 
remote nook of Europe. 

Thus we pass through this living museum of 
ethnology, far better than any dead collection of 
antiquities. To see the people themselves, alive, 
moving, acting, in their costumes, manners, 
buildings, business, is far more instructive than 
to look at their remains in art, or their empty 
armor, or their skeletons. It is well to read the 
Sacred Books of a people, still better is it to see 
this people, and to note what kind of a life those 
Sacred Books have called forth. A dissertation 
on Mahommedan or Hindoo doctrines at the 
■Congress of Religions is a good thing; but the 
living comment ou these doctrines as realized in 
the institutions and social condition of a nation 
is the best. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 361 

Verily in the Plaisance we begin to touch the 
substructure of a true World's History. The 
globe's belt of 25,000 miles reduced to one 
mile; 6,000 years (and probably more) com- 
pressed to six months (and probably less) ; thus 
mind, the wonderful Ariel, has to girdle not 
only Earth's space, but also Earth's time. 

II. Very natural is it that the Orient should 
hold tenaciously to the idea of a lapse, a primi- 
tive fall, strongly set forth in the story of Para- 
dise. Must not the Orientals think that the 
Occident is a lapse from the higher Orient? 
Nature even suggests it apparently in the rising 
of the Sun in the East and the setting of the 
same in the West. The lapse is their assertion 
of self, of their place in all culture. They in- 
culcate it in their Holy Books, thus affirming 
themselves to be the primal source of goodness 
and wisdom. Undoubtedly they involve them- 
selves in this original lapse, still their people 
were the sacred people, and are yet the true 
believers. 

On the contrary, the Occident, in order to 
assert itself, must hold to the opposite doctrine, 
namely, a progress out of the Orient, an evolu- 
tion from lower to higher advancement in civiliza- 
tion. Not the fall of man, but his rise is the 
fundamental faith of the Occident, in spite of its 
Theology, largely borrowed from the Orient. 
Thus the deepest dualism of the Human Spirit 



362 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

and of the World's History lurks in those two 
words, Orient and Occident, and surges through 
the mind with tremendous power in the Plaisance. 

The interplay between these two influences is 
probably the greatest question of to-day. Euro- 
pean energy is working back upon Asia as never 
before. Asiatic mind is in many forms making 
new paths westward. Still the inherent differ- 
ence between Orient and Occident remains, and 
shows a secret trend toward some new synthesis 
of the opposing forces. 

III. One will seek to classify the sounds of 
the Plaisance, its colors, and its motions. 

. There is the chaotic background of mere noise, 
which, however, has a character of its own, that 
of relaxation and mirthfulness. But above the 
hubbub and through it wind strains of music, 
diversified and tinged with national characteris- 
tics. The musical instruments also furnish quite 
a study in themselves. Is there any reason why 
the Scotch specially prefer a bag-pipe, and the 
Chinese a gong? The most universal instrument 
is probably the drum, which gives the first form 
of rhythm for bodily movement. The regular 
recurrence of the beat calls for a primitive har- 
mony between the man and the sound. The 
variety of drums on the Plaisance is very great. 
The Dahomey negroes have an orchestra of 
drums which are made of skins stretched over 
barrels, casks, hollow logs, etc. The South Sea 



MISCELLANEOUS. 363 

Islanders belabor with a maul a huo^e trouo^h 
hollo^yed out from the trunk of the tree. The 
Arabian drum-beater sits on a camel and pounds 
with great energy a covered kettle ; sometimes a 
squeaking wooden instrument is added. The 
American fife and drum belong also to the primi- 
tive music of the Plaisance. We may say that 
the drum, with its very slight organization of 
sound, is the beginning of instrumental music. 

Above the drum must rank the whistle or 
squeaker rising at last to fife, flageolet and flute. 
A column, of air is made to vibrate through a 
tube with vents for the fingers. Thus a rude 
scale starts into being. Such an instrument 
united with the drum, which has no scale, but 
only time, begins the primitive orchestra; sound 
is not simply measured by a drum-beat, but gets 
pitch and a certain quality. Thus the Plaisance 
shows the path which leads up to Thomas' 
orchestra, which plays in the Exposition grounds 
and does not descend to the Midway. Still, for 
the investigator, the Plaisance itself is the true 
orchestra here, embracing nearly every stage of 
development in instruments and musical tones, 
from Dahomey upwards. One, by carefully 
listening, can hear this orchestra playing, if not 
with great sweetness, at least with decided sig- 
nificance. In all these cases music is an external 
vibration of air which starts an internal move- 
ment in the soul ; be the man savage or civilized. 



364 WOULD' S FAIB STUDIES. 

music brings together and harmonizes the outer 
and the inner being of him. 

Of course, the culmination of the music of the 
Plaisance is found in the German bands. Yet, 
even here we mark a difference in spirit. One 
needs but hear the Prussian band and then the 
Austrian, in order to account for Sadowa. The 
grand Teutonic dualism, which is seen in the two 
villages, also very plainly shows itself in the 
music played in each. 

IV. As to the colors of the Plaisance, the most 
strikinsf manifestation is in the varieo^ated cos- 
tumes. Highly diversified is the display of tints 
and of dress; the fascination is to sit down in 
some nook, watch it and try to find the order in 
the ocean of Oriental caprice. Law must lurk 
underneath all these shifting appearances and 
control them. 

It is the man who makes himself picturesque 
in the East; the woman lives properly in seclu- 
sion, she ought not to show herself. But in the 
Occident the man ridicules such decoration of 
the man, while the woman is expected to trick 
herself out in fine dress. She is the picturesque 
person of the human pair in the West ; just com- 
pare the head-gear of the two sexes passing down 
the Midway. Then take a glance at the variety 
of Oriental turbans worn by men. 

The present costume of the Occidental man is 
made for business, not for the picturesque, which 



MISCELLANEOUS. 365 

the Oriental loves, not lor the statuesque, which 
the old Greek loved. He has evolved his 
breeches out of a savage ancestor as well as him- 
self. He has to move unencumbered by his 
wrappage. A skillful eye can read the world's 
development in its dress. Well did Carlyle seize 
upon clothes as a symbol, and the history thereof 
as a genuine utterance of human spirit, in his 
famous book, Sartor Resartus. 

• V. (yolor at the World's Fair has risen into 
colossal proportions by means of electricity and 
pyrotechnics. A new art of illumination is 
hinted in these grand displays; light with its 
variations of color, thrown upon the vast back- 
ground of night, moonlit, starlit, or clouded into 
many shapes of flying dragons, has produced the 
most wonderful spectacular eff'ects, embracing 
land, water and sky in their natural magnitude. 
A kind of nocturnal painting by means of color 
we have witnessed on a scale of grandeur which 
makes every portraiture on canvas seem insignifi- 
cant, and calls up the picture gallery of the 
future employing the walls and the canopy of 
the real Heavens, whereon to paint man and his 
works as well as anorels and divinities. 

Why should not a million eyes at the next 
Chicasfo World's Fair behold the Last Judgment 
thrown upon the skies over Lake Michigan and 
witness the coming of the Son of Man seated 
literally upon the clouds, while electricity, the 



366 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

new Lucifer or Light-bearer, flashes over the 
waters below, and transforms the billows into a 
rolling sea of fire, like the infernal pit? And 
the very cupola of the Heavens above could also 
be illuminated with the forms of the Blessed in 
Paradise as they float about the Dome of the 
World's Cathedral. Such shapes painting has 
seized upon hitherto, but it is merely the prophecy 
of grander appearances. Michel Angelo's pict- 
ures in the Sistine Chapel would then reach' a 
mightier fulfillment. In fact, the new illustra- 
tions of the Divine Comedy will be given with 
panoramic reality on a scale which will make 
Dante prophetic of the new art. Nor must we 
forget the fog-horn at the mouth of Chicago 
River which is to blow, like Gabriel, the last 
trumpet in the grand final spectacle. 

The reader of Dante will recollect the parallel 
thereto, in the awful blast of the horn sounding 
out of the fog or darkness in the lowest depths of 
the Inferno — a blast which temporarily fright- 
ened poor Dante into a fit. 

Why should not the human form be produced 
upon the sky before a million spectators by 
means of electrical painting, with its own per- 
spective and color ? A group of gigantic forms 
we can easily imagine drawn upon this celestial 
canvas. Nay, a new element can be added to 
such a style of painting, namely movement. 
The figures or groups of figures can be made to 



MISCELLANEOUS. 367 

change place and thus to show action, whereby 
the spectacle becomes dramatic. A battle can 
be fought upon the clouds, with discharge of 
artillery and explosion of missiles, accompanied 
by all the thunders and flashings which belong to 
such a scene. _ 

In such vast outlines a new Art begins to 
show itself, worthy of and adequate to the new 
colossal works of man in the West. Nothing is 
plainer at the World's Fair than that, of the old 
arts, Sculpture and Painting have become his- 
toric, and must ascend into a newer and more 
universal Art. Limit-breaking is the spirit here, 
taking the old not as the top of the ladder, but 
as a step therein. The electric artist is the com- 
inor Michel Ansjelo. 

VI. In the Plaisance, the movement of the 
human body has obtained a great variety of 
expression through the dances. In this field, 
too, national character finds an utterance. The 
motion of the limbs is the most immediate, 
spontaneous expression of life and soul; the 
dance, however rude, is an attempt to order the 
chaos of jerks, gestures, leaps which the vital 
energy of man impulsively flings out of itself. 
An education it is, or a beginning thereof, by 
which the caprices of movement are subjected to 
a kind of law and made rhythmical. The savage 
dancers of Dahomey we have already considered 
in this light. 



368 WOBLD'8 FATE STUDIES. 

As we pass through the Plaisance making a 
little study of the dancing, we observe a kind of 
gradation. The mild-souled Javanese dance 
with their hands mainly, in the softest curves of 
gesticulation, which it is quite impossible for 
the hardy, strong-willed people of Northern 
latitudes to acquire. The girls in the Java 
theater lull the eye with their graceful sweep of 
arm and hand ; a tropical breath comes out of 
their motions, and harmonizes with their low, 
sweet, gentle voices. But their neighbors on 
the Plaisance, the Irish, dance with their legs 
and feet ; hands are hanging down at t he side of 
the body and seem in the way. On exhibition 
are young and old men, who certainly 
make a shuffling of the feet which is 
intricate, rapid, and very noisy. But the 
Javanese with the delicate wavings of the hand 
make no noise, nor is the motion rapid, and it 
always seems simple. May we not affirm 
that the two peoples divide, to a certain extent, 
on the same lines? The Irishman is a strong 
man, but boisterous, he is always heard from, 
wherever he may take up his abode. His favorite 
clog-dance accompanied by the bag-pipe does not 
belie him. 

Hands and feet we now have seen dancing ; 
why should not that part of the body which lies 
in the middle have its turn? It has, and this 
brings us to the famous abdominal dance i^danse 



MISCELLANEOUS. 360 

du ventre) in the Turkish, Algerine and Egyptian 
theaters. A dance specially cultivated in Ma- 
homedan countries, it seems, where the man has 
many wives; these dancing girls show the woman 
as temptress, seeking to win the man through 
sensuous enticement. The visitor who goes to 
the Fair to investigate, can well trace in this 
dance a phase of Oriental life, a social outcome 
thereof. The chief function of the female is to 
charm the male; her look, her face, her gesture 
and movements indicate the one supreme end ; 
no training, mental or moral, except to please 
and allure. The result is a kind of fixed features, 
a crystallized smile, making them all look alike 
to a degree ; woman in the Orient is not strongly 
individualized. One may note a similar look in 
early Greek statues, while Greek art was still 
under Oriental influence. 

From a physiological point of view, this dance 
is not only health-giving, but develops strength 
in those parts which are under great strain dur- 
ing maternity. Here, too, we may catch a hint 
of a social fjict in the Orient, the woman's chief 
function is to bear strong men, the lords of crea- 
tion; even her amusement is to prepare her for 
that duty. It would not probably hurt the 
American girl to practice this dance a little, not 
in public of course. At least we may see in it a 
good side, and a purpose not wholly sensuous, 
though it be not recommended for the ball-room. 

24 



370 WOBLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

VII. The Moorish Palace, outside and inside, 
will command a good deal of attention. The 
architecture hints an Arabian prototype ; the form 
of the windows, the play of colors, the horse- 
shoe arches make a very suggestive whole ; the 
architect has certainly imparted to it a Saracenic 
touch. When we enter tKe building, a world of 
appearances, shows, simulacra, rise before us on 
every side. One will see the waxen figures 
addressed as living beings, and the living attend- 
ants looked at as waxen figures. 

But the mirrors produce the greatest surprises 
and strangest delusions for a short time, the 
cause being essentially the reflection of a reflec- 
tion, which second reflection is again reflected, 
and so on, ad infinitum. The individual goes to 
a triangular room in which the mirrors are placed 
at such an angle that the image repeats itself 
many times, a thousand times it is said in the 
advertising bill. Thus is there seen the one sub- 
stance casting its manifold shadows — a species 
of Oriental emanation or lapse from the one to 
the many, and from substance to shadow. We 
look into the Bottomless Well, which has one 
mirror above the head and one below; again 
there is an indefinite repetition downwards, 
suggesting the unattainable beyond or the infinite 
series from the highest to the lowest, in a scale 
of gradual descent. 



MISCELLANE 0U8. 371 

Then we enter the Labyrinth, in which the arch 
is reflected many times in succession, so that the 
whole seems a long arched passage whose vista 
reaches out to the end of vision. Into this pas- 
sage the visitor offers to go and take a stroll, 
when he is brought face to face with his mirrored 
semblance in a kind of collision, or kiss, it may 
be. Significantly do some people get lost in this 
maze of reflections, though the whole room con- 
taining it is but a few feet square. 

The outer reflection leads to inner reflection, 
and the mind begins to trace resemblances and 
to find analogies. Is not this a picture of the 
Arabic consciousness to a degree? Granada, the 
Moors and Alhambra certainly flit through the 
imagination. Man here dwells in a world of 
shadows, with which he becomes strangely en- 
tangled. 

The Arabian tales float before us again, being 
suggested by these appearances; the story of 
Sindbad with its repetitions finds a counterpart. 
We thought, too, of a mathematical science, 
algebra, an Arabian product, and its perpetual 
wrestle w^ith the so-called infinite series, dwin- 
dling down toward nothing in endless self-repeti- 
tion, like the faces in the Bottomless Well. 
Arabian philosophy too, with its Pantheism ; the 
individual is but this shadowy semblance, flitting 
in Time and Space, and slowly vanishing into the 
Infinite. 



372 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

VIII. The Turk is on hand in the Plaisance, 
and we have a limited opportunity of looking at 
him who has been called the sick man of Europe, 
though he is not sick here, being the noisiest 
fellow on the street. The Turkish village is 
the most open of all the villages, and has a long 
line of rambling houses set down on the ground 
without much order. This confusion of buildins: 
hints an imperfect condition of civic spirit. The 
architecture probably images the people. A 
barn-like construction prevails, their houses are 
sheds for temporary use. The Turk has put up 
the most insubstantial buildinojs at the Fair. The 
sign of uncertainty is in them all ; he is not going 
to stay long. Of course this is to be expected 
on the present occasion; but the same trait runs 
through all his work in Europe. He proclaims 
himself a mere sojourner, if not an intruder ; he 
in his heart believes that he will not remain a 
great while even in Turkey. One can see in 
Greece masonry, laid by the Turk not a hundred 
years ago, tumbling down, while alongside of it 
is Greek work 3,000 years old, which is still per- 
fect and in place. Some Arabic ornaments are 
tacked on here and there, but you can always see 
the Turk underneath. Touches of European and 
Arabic culture can be noticed on the outside, but 
they have not become internal and organic. A 
tent-village, to be pulled up and moved to-mor- 
row, is still suggested ; a nomad and a Tartar 
cannot build with the thought of permanence. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 373 

This lack of substantiality he shows by his 
conduct here ; he indulges in antics, catch-cries 
of broken English, jokes and hubbub generally 
in order to get the attention of the passer. Some 
have said that all this does not represent Turkey, 
and that the Turkish village is purely a specula- 
tive enterprise of some Oriental Jews. That the 
whole is a money-making job, one may well 
believe, certainly it does not pretend to be a 
charity; still the originators, whoever they be, 
are seeking to represent Turkey, and they have 
made the Turk the noisiest fellow in the Plais- 
ance, and have given the village a distinctive 
Turkish meaning. 

The mosque is here too, as simple and as bare 
as a New England meeting-house ; its minaret is 
in striking contrast to the highly decorated 
minaret of the mosque in the Street in Cairo. In 
these two structures we can catch a glimpse of 
the difference between the two chief Mahomme- 
dan peoples, the Turk and the Arab. A third 
important Mahommedan nation is represented in 
the Plaisance, the Persian, of Aryan stock. 
Thus is brought to mind in these few acres how 
the Prophet, being of Semitic blood, has ex- 
tended his spiritual sway over peoples of the 
two other great races of mankind, Turanian and 
Aryan. But the latter have modified their 
Semitic religion, which is still seen to be foreign 
to them in a certain degree. 



374 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

IX. In the Chinese Theater the visitor will 
seek to witness not simply the acting, but to find 
out the significance of the play. He has prob- 
ably his Shakespeare in mind, and he will strive 
to see how the Chinese dramatist will treat the 
great collisions of life, in comparison with the 
British poet. In one of these plays temptation 
is the pivotal theme; it comes to the young 
Prince who is already married, in the shape of 
the scarlet woman who is an evil spirit. The 
fall, the remorse, the gradual recovery of the 
sinner are all portrayed, but the internal change 
through repentance is accompanied with a great 
display of jugglery and mystifying tricks, which 
seem to have a restorative effect upon the erring 
Prince. If we understood the matter, the inter- 
nal process of repentance, the spirit's transfor- 
mation through spirit, 'is not fully revealed to 
the Chinese mind, but remains, in part at least, 
a mystery, a jugglery. How different is Shakes- 
peare ! Moreover, the same young Prince is 
married to two wives ; and the Occidental mind, 
habituated to monogamy, asks : If you have two 
already, why not take a third. C'esi le premier 
pas qui coutef In a polygamous country, such 
as China is, the problem of the scarlet woman is 
surely not so hard to dispose of, and the dramatic 
collision which involves such a character, is not 
very intense. Thus in dramatic art also the 
difference between Orient and Occident shows 
itself. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 375 

In another Chinese drama (recollect, the pro- 
grammes are printed in English), two Princesses 
are the central figures, and fight a drawn battle 
with each other, whereby they become reconciled 
and declare themselves sisters forever afterwards, 
in mutual admiration of womanly prowess. One 
is a daughter of the Emperor, the other is the 
daughter of a tributary King; the daughters 
reconcile their respective parents, who were at 
war ; the result is peace to the realm through the 
mediation of the Princesses. So the Chinese 
playwright exalts the woman, and makes her, in 
his own vray, a mediatorial character as Shakes- 
peare has so often done — Portia, Rosalind, 
Hermione. But these are all peaceful heroines; 
the Chinaman goes a step further and makes his 
woman a fighter as well as a reconciler ; wherein 
he may possibly be prophetic. Such a curious 
glimpse we catch here concerning the advanced 
woman in this Oriental theater : first, the two 
fight a duel, then they reconcile themselves, then 
they reconcile their royal parents, and finally 
they bring peace to a disrupted empire. Does 
not that overtop Shakespeare? 

Interesting will it be to witness in the Chinese 
style a collision of Love, the most universal of 
all themes of art. The following story is ex- 
planatory of one of the compartments of the 
Chinaman's Hades : a boy and a girl have fallen 
in love with each other, but the parents have 



376 WORLD' 8 FAIR STUDIES. 

betrothed the girl to another, that being the 
parental right in China. Her lover dies of a 
broken heart, when he finds out the situation; 
she kills herself at his grave, believing that 
she will be united with him in Hades. So far 
we have a Chinese Romeo and Juliet. But mark 
the addition ; the youth to whom she has been 
betrothed commits suicide at her grave, that he 
may appear beyond, and stop the union and have 
the lovers punished. Thus is the right of the 
parent vindicated not only in this life but in the 
other — seemingly an offshoot of the Chinese 
worship of ancestors. Surely to the Chinaman 
the universe would fall to pieces if a parent's 
will could be thwarted by the child, even through 
self-destruction. Again, how different is Shakes- 
peare I He, true to the spirit of the Occident, 
gives to the daughter the right of choosing her 
husband against the will of the parent, even in 
this life, saying nothing of what is beyond. 
Such is the freedom which he claims for the 
daughter, and thus he has become the prophet 
of woman's emancipation. Herein we may 
observe the true contrast between the Chinese 
and Western Drama ; in the preceding play of the 
Two Princesses, the exaltation of the woman is 
not the reality, but a far off presentiment. Still 
the human heart is the same in China as else- 
where, and love asserts its supreme power ; the 
lovers, in spite of parental authority and the 
terror of Hades, prefer death to separation. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 377 

Nor would the Western consciousness take to 
the following as a basis for a novel, drama or 
work of art : A dutiful son who is penniless, loses 
his father by death, and, to give the latter a 
decent burial, sells himself into slavery. So the 
dead father is better than the living son at any 
moment. Then comes the reward for filial piety, 
though this has destroyed human freedom : God 
sends one of the seven angels of Heaven to be 
his wife. Neither such a son nor such a God can 
arise in the Occident. Very plain does it appear 
in the case of China that the Family can become 
overbalanced in its one-sided stress, and destroy 
the very individual whom it ought to cherish. 

Let the visitor contemplate also this work of 
art which is set before him in the joss-house : a 
picture shows a butcher being pounded into a 
jelly for having killed a calf, as it is a capital 
offense in China to kill an animal. The calf is 
as good as the man, and is made his offset ; such 
is the worth of humanity. A religious conception, 
transmigration, probably lies at the basis of this 
punishment. 

China is indeed the greatest problem in the 
World's History. It has an age reaching into 
the remotest antiquity ; Egypt, Babylon, Judea, 
Greece, Rome, have risen and passed away in its 
presence; still it is alive, and is becoming the 
storm-center of the Orient. It has universal 
education, literature, culture ; its people are one- 



378 WORLD'S FAIB STUDIES. 

fourth, possibly one-third of the total human 
race. It persists, it cannot be assimilated, repre- 
senting the stationary on this globe, while the 
western peoples have had movement, progress, 
evolution, therewith decay and death. Opposed 
the two principles have been hitherto; but are 
they not two sides of one deeper principle which 
is to make the new synthesis of civilization? 

X. Thus have we studied and sought to bring 
into the order of thought this wonderful Plaisance, 
the greatest surprise of the Fair, and one of its 
greatest and most original exhibits. Not suffi- 
cient has been the word, though the result of 
no little labor and reflection, and it maybe 
added, of love. The subject is always reaching 
out beyond and beyond, limit-defying; yet just 
this is a phase of the unique experience. The 
Plaisance will probably be remembered longer 
than any other part of the Fair and will be more 
frequently reproduced ; it has in it the seed of 
the future, and will hereafter develop into pro- 
portions now unspeakable. All the peoples of 
the earth are yet to come together along some 
future Midway and get acquainted with one an- 
other in customs, arts and institutions. They all 
must have been created for some purpose; even 
the barbarian has his undoubted place in the 
Supreme Order, and must be given his right. 
Hitherto savages so-called have been simply an 
unexplained negative element of mankind, which 



MISCELLANEOUS. 379 

element was to be exterminated by civilization. 
But now we catch a hint tbat they also belong to 
the grand total of humanity, and are in the 
world's process, which must no longer play a 
destructive, but a constructive part toward the 
inferior races. 

But not alone barbarians are here ; highly civ- 
ilized people of the East are present and are 
showing what they have done in the line of art, 
of industry, of intellectual and social improve- 
ment. Can we fraternize with their work, and 
annex it to our own spiritual domain? Soul- 
stretching, barrier-bursting is the process, 
uprooting our deepest prejudices of race and 
religion, and compelling us to revise our funda- 
mental ideas as never before. Strange as the 
statement may seem, the Midway becomes a 
preacher, a missionary to some of us, starting a 
kind of palingenesis, breaking through the hard- 
est crystallized limits of the spirit, and setting 
free a human soul which did not know till now 
that it was in prison. Not to speak of religion, 
what shall we say to this Oriental art? We of 
the AVest have been dominated by the Greek 
ideal, but here is another ideal, very different, 
infinitely elaborated, wrought out with the great- 
est technical skill. We are repelled by it, but 
hundreds of millions in Asia accept it ; can we 
not, must we not take it up into our spirit's 
being, if we wish to be a total man, measured by 



380 WOBLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

the race's standard? In conclusion, we may 
repeat a text already repeated: The Plaisance is 
a voyage round the World and down Time. 

XI. And yet we have omitted from these 
studies the greatest study of all — the World's 
Fair City. Repeatedly it has been noted that 
there was somethinoj at work mightier than all 
the plans of the individuals in charge, something 
which had the power of getting its purpose 
accomplished, often without the knowledge of, 
and sometimes in spite of, those having authority. 
A number of the supreme architectural effects 
came of themselves without the bidding of any 
architect ; the Midway planned itself and fought 
its career out to the end, in defiance of a 
narrow and harassing official policy. 

Still more striking was the manifestation of 
this spirit in the city itself, which seemed pos- 
sessed by a demonic energy, and had the power to 
do whatever it pleased. A truly Marat honian deed 
done by a single community ; this deed was more 
than urban, more than national, it was world- 
historical, and raised Chicago at once to the 
rank of a world-city, American still, yet also 
cosmopolitan. What is this spirit, which, seizing 
hold of a people at rare intervals, causes them to 
accomplish such wonders? Its presence was felt 
by every thoughtful visitor at the Fair; it was a 
mighty spell which made even the ordinary man 
greater than himself. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 381 

Profound thinkers, poets, philosophers, have 
long recognized such a spirit lurking in human 
affairs at certain pivotal epochs, and have sought 
to seize it and name it, and make it comprehensi- 
ble for thought. We may call it the World- 
Spirit, which, when it wishes to manifest itself in 
a new era, takes possession of a city or a whole 
people, and through them makes itself a reality 
in time. The only explanation and the final view 
of Chicago in this business is that the World- 
Spirit had hold of her, and every citizen acted 
under the spell of that subtle yet resistless in- 
fluence. _/ 

And now for a look at the other side, the in- 
dividual side of the Fair, in which poor, weak 
mortal man shows himself in undress. All sorts 
of bickerings, animosities, personalities ; envy 
finds a harvest, and especially self-exploitation 
thrives, in which Chicago is never wanting. An 
enormous number of individuals must be em- 
ployed in doing the work of the Fair, high and 
low, each with his and her own ambitions,- 
jealousies, notions of self-importance. No 
wonder that this wriggling mass should get 
into conflict with itself, and produce a clashing 
of authority and multifarious wrangling. The 
ladies have their unfathomable troubles ; Chicasfo 
has an unusual number of ambitious women, 
eager to do something for the universal good, 
quite as eager to get the credit for doing it. 



382 WORLD'S FAIR STUDIES. 

Then social claims and prejudices: What an in- 
expressible tangle ! A Duchess comes to town, 
and somebody is not invited to see her, whereat 
a furious tempest, with accusations and resent- 
ments — even woman's hottest tears are not 
wanting to the cauldron already seething. The 
men are indeed no better, being born of woman. 
The committees from the several States find fault 
because of a lack of attention ; and indeed are 
they not important personages, senators, repre- 
sentatives, mayors, and what not? It is too bad ; 
let indignation find vent in the newspapers. 

Now the emphatic point is to see how all these 
personal ends, schemes, ambitions, jealousies are 
just the means taken by the World-Spirit to 
bring forth its end. Behold all these individuals 
working for dear life, each with his own secret 
hope or plan for himself, yet held by an unseen 
and to him unknown power, and driven to his 
task with a scourge wielded by the seven devils. 
"Being shoved, he thinks he shoves;" a veri- 
table Walpurgis-Night, in which individuality is 
given the fullest play of freedom, yet is over- 
ruled by a mightier power. Undoubtedly the 
work had to be done by individuals who showed 
skill and devotion ; but whenever a man stood by 
himself, apart from the great totality, he seemed 
small, weak, inadequate. The Fair produced no 
Hero, no towering personality, in whom its Idea 
took a grand living embodiment; its administra- 



MISCELLANEOUS. 383 

tion distinctly fell below its Idea. Many indi- 
viduals co-operated and must have their place in 
its history, but behind them was a spirit greater 
than any one of them or even all of them. The 
City was the Hero, for the City through its deed 
was able to make itself the incarnation of the 
World-Spirit, and thus call forth an epoch. 



WORKS BY 
DENTON J. SNIDER 

PUBLISHED BY THE 

SIGMA PUBLISHING CO., 

210 Pine Street, ST. LOTJIS, MO. 
10 VanBureu Street, CHICAGO, ILL. 



I. Commentary on the Literary Bibles, in 10 Vols. 

1. Shakespeare's Dramas, 3 vols, (new edition). 

Tragedies $2.00 

Comedies 2.00 

Histories . . . . . . . 2.00 

2. Goethe's Faust. 

First Part 1.25 

Second Part 1.25 

3. Homer's Iliad 1.25 

4 Dante's Inferno 2.00 

♦* Purgatory and Paradise . . . 2.00 
General Survey and Homer's Odyssey not 
yet published. 

II. Poems — in 4 vols. 

1. Homer in Chios 1.00 

2. Delphic Days 1.00 

3. Agamemnon's Daughter . . .1.00 

4. Prorsus Retrorsus . . . . .1.00 

III. Miscellaneous. 

1. Walk in Hellas 1.25 

2. The Freeburgers — a novel .... 1.00 
3.- World's Fair Studies 1.25 

Published by the same firm. 

Johnny Appleseed's Rhymes . . .1.25 

Each volume sold separately. Sent by mail on receipt 
of the price. 



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